Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/894

CIVIL SERVICE. 788 CIVIL SERVICE. sumption, by municipalities and by the State, of a variety of services and functions that were previously left to private enterprise; such as the cleaning of streets, the removal of waste, and the furnishing of a water-supply in cities, and, in some countries, the building and management of telegraph-lines, railways, and canals, and of irrigation-works on a large scale, by the general tJovernmeut. The British civil service now numbers about 80,000 olhcials of all grades. At the head stand the officers of the Royal Household, under several departments; then come the otBcers of the House of Lords and the House of Commons; then a vast number of offices or departments, of which the following are the more imjiortant : Treasury, home ollice, foreign office, colonial office. India office, war office, admiralty, board of trade, post- office, customs, inland revemic ( imludiiig stamps, taxes, and excise), exchequer and audit office, office of woods and forests, otBce of works and buildings. Duchy of Lancaster, public-record of- fice, local government board. ^ education depart- ment, civil-senice commission, registrar-general's office, stationery office, ecclesiastical commfssion, charity commission, patent-office, emigration office. Trinity House, herald's college, law and equity courts, ecclesiastical and admiralty courts, prisons department, British iluscum, science and art department, diplomatic and con- sular corjis. Several departments peculiar to Scotland and Ireland form distinct lists, not in- eluded in the above. The heads of most of the departments are political officers, changing with the Ministry. Others, such as the head of the exchequer and audit department, or the (-ommis- sioners of customs and of inland revenue, are permanent officials. Excluding the judicial offices, and a few departments where special knowledge is required, the civil service is open to the iniblic generally, the principle of open competition being in force as regards most of the departments. See Gre.t Brit.ix, paragraph on (lorernment. The civil administration of the Federal Gov- ernment of the United States is confided to a body of upward of 100,000 officials. These are all included within the eight general departments of the National Government — the De|iartnients of State. ■Justice. Interior. War, Navy, Treasury, Post-Oflice, and Agriculture — and Congress, though some of these contain a large number and variety of bureaus dealing with a great diversity of interests not logicallj' related to the main business of the department. As examples of this incongruity, it is only necessary to men- tion the National Observatory, under the juris- diction of the Navy Department, and the Na- tional Lilirary. under that of Congress. The President is llie great source of power in the American Federal system, all the officers of the Government, excepting the Vice-President, the members of the two Houses of Congress, and the employes of the latter, owing their offices to his appointment. The curious identity of the governmental and administrative forms which have been adopted in the several States of the American Union is treated in. the article Unitko State.s, section on Slate Uoccrnmcnt. The result of this identity is, of course, a great similarity in the civil service of the States. In nmst of the States, the principal judicial officers and the heads of the great de- partments of administration, as well as the Gov- ernor and Lieutenant-Governor, are chosen by popular vote. Generally, each elective officer has the power to name his own subordinates, the Governor's appointing power being limited to his own clerks and secretaries and to the officials of certain bureaus or commissions, which do not come under the jurisdiction of the constitutional departments of administration. The restricted character of the functions of the States in our Federal system has thus far furnished no occa- sion for an extensive civil service, and, accord- ingly, the number of persons employed in that service in the State governments is very small compared with the number employed in the Federal service. The establishment of a State constabulary, or police system, or the assump- tion by the Commonwealth of the ownership and operation of telegraphs, railroads, or other great industrial enterprises, would of cour.se enor- mously increase tiie civil service of the State. In the modern city, on the other band, by rea- son of the great diversity and extent of the functions of municipal government in our day, the nimiber of civil servants is very great, aiid tends constantly to increase. Not only the purely governmental operations of a city government, as the maintenance of a police force and efficient local tribunals; not only its quasi-governmental functions, as the regulation and administration of a system of public instruction, the cleaning of streets, and the removal of waste; not only its gigantic business enterprises, as in supjdying its citizens with water and gas, and the building and operation of bridges, systems of trans])ortation, etc. ; but also its administration of the property interests committed to its charge, as the docks, parks, streets, etc., call for a vast and com- plicated machinery of administration and an army of civil servants. American cities have generally reproduced, th great fidelity and tuiiformity, the type of municipal government brought over by our earliest city-builders from England. The head of the administration is a mayor, elected by popular vote, and with him are usually chosen a treasurer, comptroller, or other financial officer, and sometimes other heads of departments. But generally the power of ap- pointment vested in the mayor is a large one, and often it extends to the appointment of most if not all of the chiefs of the several administra- tive departments of the local government. See City; Municipal Government. Local political divisions, such as counties, towns, parishes, and school districts, present a greater diversity of goveriuuental form and ad- ministratioti ; but in the United States the mnn- ber of appointive officers in those divisicms is small, and in a general view of the subject of civil service they do not call for special con- sideration. The method of appointment to the public ser- vice and the tenure of the civil servant vary greatly in England, according to the historical character of the service; in the United States, according to the jurisdiction and the rank of the official. High officers of State are appointed in Great Britain by royal warrant : in the United States, by ccminiission. In the former country the complexity of the service is great, many public officers deriving their status fnmi long usage, and being attended with privileges and immunities of immemorial force. Many of them are for life, many have the personal quality associated with