to the subordinate, who is thrown out for no fault on his part, no matter how meritorious his record may be, just when he has become accustomed to his place, and partially, at least unfitted for other business. It is also prejudicial to the service. It turns out a man who has become sufficiently familiar with his duties to begin to be useful, and puts in an inexperienced man, who will have to spend nearly his whole official term in mastering his duties, only to be in turn dismissed and succeeded in like manner.

A man is not, as a rule, a useful public servant when he enters an office. He requires the training and discipline that only experience in an office can furnish. When experience has been added to his other qualifications he has reached the point of usefulness. He can then render a fair equivalent of service for his salary, and the public interests demand his retention, rather than the palpable folly of perpetual change, with its incidents of inexperience and incompetence.

No business can be successfully managed on such a system. And no rational business man would permit his business to be demoralized by dismissing competent subordinates only to employ others who have no training or experience because some friend of theirs may be pleased.

The delays, the lack of system, and the unfinished business that have been found to exist in some of the public departments are pregnant commentaries upon such a system.

Another grave objection to non-competitive positions is that they are a hinderance to promotions and transfers. There can be no promotion or transfer from a non-competitive to a competitive position without a competitive examination similar to that upon entering the service.

Promotions and transfers in such cases can only be made to other non-competitive positions. This often creates embarrassment, and is a serious obstruction to those in the service, by removing the stimulus of prospective promotion and fettering them to one position.

It is very obvious, therefore, that it is vastly better for subordinates themselves, and for the public interests, that non-competitive positions should be discountenanced, and as few in number as possible.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SERVICES IN REGARD TO PROMOTION.

Recent comments by a part of the American press on the announcement that on certain points the British Civil Service system is thought to require revision, and that a commission of investigation has been appointed, seem to have suggested a fear that the framers of the National American system, and of the system adopted in this State, have gravely erred in following the example which in this reform had been set by Great Britain, and which is now found to require amendment.

It may not be improper, for the avoidance of any misapprehersion or unjust prejudice on this point, to allude to the fact that the principles and methods which have been in part borrowed from Great Britain, and incorporated in the "Act to regulate and improve the Civil Service of the State of New York," have been thoroughly in accord with our traditional American ideas, which rest upon the great principles of magna charta and habeas corpus, and the bill of rights; of government in its three departments, legislative, executive and judicial; of legislation by two houses, and of the common law, with its marvelous wisdom, gathered through a thousand years, of which the Christianity of the Bible is a part, and which our ancestors adopted from Great Britain as the common law of the American republic.

The recent dissatisfaction with the British service appears to have arisen chiefly from two features which are quite apart from the general rule, and neither of which has been incorporated in our national or State system that of the division of the service by an impassible barrier, and that of promotion by seniority.

The last point, promotion by seniority, appears to have been approved as a measure tending to reform, in one of those acts passed in the last century, which mark the influence of the American war in reforming the erroneous theories and the practical abuses which had emphasized the policy of Great Britain toward the American colonies, and which at last led to the revolution.

The late Sir Thomas Erskine May, in his history, quotes the letter of a British general, written in 1758, which says, with a notable frankness of expression and with an exactness of statement which seems to justify in one sense the claim of antiquity sometimes made for the American spoils system: "As for civil officers

appointed for America, most of the places in the gift of the crown have been filled with broken-down members of Parliament, of bad if any principles, valets de chambre, electioneering scoundrels, and even livery-servants. In one word, America has been for many years made the hospital of England."

When British bribery and corruption had done their part on both sides of the Atlantic to lose for England her American colonies, and when the surrender at Yorktown had convinced both the court and the people of Great Britian of the hopelessness of the attempt to subdue the colonies, the fall of the ministry of Lord North ushered in the cabinet of Lord Rockingham, which coupled with its policy of "independence to America" the administrative reform of which Pitt, Fox, Richmond and Sheridan were prominent promoters. Official interference with the freedom of elections led to an act in 1782, disabling certain officers connected with the customs, excise, and postoffice from giving their vote; and this restriction continued until 1868, when the right to vote was restored as one that could be safely allowed after the adoption of the merit system. That law was followed in 1784 by an act of singular thoroughness in reference to the India service, which made any officer guilty of a corrupt contract for office or employment guilty of a misdemeanor, and subjected one guilty of official misrepresentation to the forfeiture of his entire fortune, and this act to prevent promotion by favor and patronage based promotion mainly on seniority.

When in 1853 the report on the organization of the permanent Civil Service was made by Sir Stafford H. Northcote, now Lord Iddesleigh and Mr. C. E. Trevelyan, these gentlemen remarked (Report, p. 19) that "if the opinion of the gentlemen engaged in the Civil Service could be taken on the subject of promotion, it would probably be found that a very large majority of them would object strongly to what is called promotion by merit. The reason · they would assign would be that promotion by (so-called) merit would usually become promotion by favoritism."

The admirable papers upon the proposed system, from some forty of the ablest writers in England, published by Parliament in 1855, showed a difference of opinion upon this point. Sir George Cornwall Lewis, for instance, said (page 121): "The report showed that a large majority of the members of the Civil Service prefer

promotion by seniority to promotion by merit, because they think that promotion by merit would in practice become promotion by favor (p. 19). It is certain that promotion by seniority is better than promotion by favor; but I suspect that this view is taken by those who think that if promotion depended on competition and superior merit they would be distanced in the race.

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"In spite of these obstacles it is my conviction that the most effectual means of improving the Civil Service is to make the promotion depend upon merit and not upon seniority; and to use the power of dismissal in case of incompetency, irregularity, misconduct, and indolence more freely than it is used at present.

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As to the details of the proposed plan different views will be entertained; as to the excellence of the object there can be but one opinion. It appears to me that the great discouragement which operates upon men of ability in the Civil Service is not so much the obscurity of the position or the insufficiency of the pay as the system of promotion by seniority rather than by

merit.

"The depressing effect of promotion by mere seniority upon the clerks who would be promoted if merit were taken as the criterion is manifest, and cannot fail to influence their conduct. It implies a non-recognition of their merit, not only by the public (for which they may be prepared), but by the head of their own department, by those to whom their superiority over the persons promoted ought to be and probably is known." ("Papers Relating to the Organization of the Civil Service." London, 1855, pp. 121, 122, 123, 124.) Another writer, Mr. Edward Romilly Law: "Promotion in the service should be by merit and not seniority."

In 1860 the report made by the Parliamentary Committee of Investigation, embracing such eminent statesmen as Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Bright, Mr. Lowe (now Lord Sherbrooke), Mr. Monckton Milnes (the late Lord Houghton), Lord Stanley and Mr. Roebuck, stated among the ends to be accomplished: "To encourage industry and foster merit, by teaching all public servants to look forward to promotion according to their deserts, and to expect the highest prizes in the service if they can qualify themselves for them."―(Mr. Eaton's "Civil Service in Great Britain," p. 220.)

Among the unanimous conclusions of the committee was that pass examinations should be wholly superseded, and that no place in

the public service be filled save through a competition of five, or at least three, nominated persons, when open competition should be found impracticable. In 1870, in obedience to the wishes of the people, the administration abolished official patronage and favoritisin, and limited competition as an incident, and substituted open competition in their place. At present promotion from lower to higher divisions of the service are not to be made without a certificate from the Civil Service Commissioners, nor until after "ten years of service," and all promotions, as well as appointments and transfers, are recorded by the Commission and published in the London Gazette.- (Eaton's "Civil Service," 264.)

Of the existing practice in regard to promotion, Mr. Eaton says, in his "Civil Service in Great Britain": "While there is a right of exception not often applied in practice, it is the rule and course of administration that the higher places are filled from the lower (perhaps with considerable reference to seniority of service), mainly with a view of rewarding and securing merit;" and he adds that competition has been resorted to in making selections for promotions," remarking, however, in a note, that "perhaps there is sometimes too much regard for seniority, which may have been allowed to exclude larger ability from the more important parts."

The London Economist of October 30, 1886, in a leading article on "Civil Service Reform," remarks that the late government of Mr. Gladstone had consented to an inquiry into the expenditure of the various departments of the Civil Service, and that the readiness with which the present Chancellor of the Exchequer consented to the inquiry being extended to the foreign as well as the home establishments of the service, is a good augury as to the width of the range of the proposed inquiry."

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The same paper, while remarking that "it is too late in the day to argue against the system of open competition," condemns the ill-judged attempt to divide the officials into brain-workers and hard workers," and suggests that the service may be very well recruited through a single class.

It seems clear from this brief glance at the historic causes of the dissatisfaction with the civil service of Great Britain, which has led to the pending inquiry into the Foreign and Home Departments, that the complaints have arisen, not from the too rigid application