RECRUITING THE CIVIL SERVICE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1096, 7 April 1911, Page 4

RECRUITING THE CIVIL SERVICE.

"Oxe of the supreme tests of democracy will b c its ability successfully to control its Civil Service, to ensure that the Civil Servant shall bo servant rather than master " The quotation is from a letter written to the Ration by "A Servant of the btate, and it indicates a danger which is at least as real in this country as in England or anywhere else, ine Nation's correspondent was taking part in a discussion on the very important question as to whether success in examinations should be the main condition of entrance to the Civil Service. When examinations as a test of efficiency lost the favour of educational authorities it was to be expected that then- use as tests for entry to the Civil Service should sooner or later bo called in question. Thus we have Mr. Lauriston Shaw, also in the Nation, saying: It is impossible to stay where wo are. 1 nes evidence that the competitive examination does not secure the best man on any basis of efficiency is overwhelming i\o extension of this system to private enterprise on any extensive scalo takes place. ... It cannot help us to choose, the best man, and it actually converts'what, but for it, might have been a good man into an inferior man. No one who has scon much of men preparing for these strenuous contests can doubt that many a candidate who starts with -»ood brains secures the coveted post with brains no longer good. This is an over-statement of a case, which, stripped of exaggeration, really has something in it. Ihe Aatioii, which has been upholding the examination system, points out, quite justly, that Mr. Shaw has not suggested any better method ot selection. In fact the Xalinn does not recede from its position that selection" (other than by examination) "will inevitably land us in the lncompetency and corruption of that ancient patronage which is the everlasting bane of honest government." There does not, indeed, appear _ to be any escape from that position. The practical question is: Which of the two systems—patronage or examination—is productive of the lesser amount of evil j We should think there could be only one answer—that which is indicated in the words of the "Servant of the State," whose letter we first quoted: Our ideal for the Civil Service is that a man shnll enter it by means of own competition with his fellows, nnd that he shall then have the opportunity of a straight run, unhampered by caito prejudice, to its hiihest sost. The subject is one to which we have often referred, and shall doubtless revert on many future occasions, but for the present we shall content ourselves with stating two of the .lessons which the discussion now go.

ing on in England suggests. The first is that the extreme difficulty, if not impossibility of recruiting the best men for the work of the State, is one reason why the Staco should not undertake anything that can bo, efficiently carried out by private enterprise And the second lesson is that matters of appointment and promotion in the Uivil Service require for their proper decision the strong and impartial arbitrament of a non-political Board.