BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1359, 9 February 1912, Page 3

BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE.

MEMORIAL TO MR. ASQUITH. A memorial signed by more than 100 members of the British House of Commons urging that tho time had come for a new inquiry into tho system of appointment and the methods of promotion iu the Civil Service was recently presented to the. Premier, Mr. Asquith, and as a result the Government have given careful consideration to the memorial and to the statement by which it was accompanied, and have como to the conclusion that such an inquiry, by a Royal Commission, would be useful and opportune. So says Mr. Asquith in a letter to Mr. Snowden. Tho memorial, which was signed by members of all parties, said: "Jt is twenty-live years since the appointment of the last commission, and in the meantime the Civil Service Estimates have risen from .£15,700,000 to -£■10,787,873, ntul the number of Civil Servants has very largely increased. "There is, we think, evidence to showthat a movement is at work to dispense with competitive examinations iu favour of tho extension of the system of patronage." 11 r. Philip Snowden, M.P., who was formerly a member of the Civil Service, says: "J. have never been associated with anything which met with so wide-spread an approval as {his. There is undoubtedly a very strong feeling among members o'f the House of Commons of all parties that the method of tilling appointments and the system of promotion should be placed on _a more satisfactory footing." "The public service of the country ought," says the "Star," "to offer, not a stunted and a stiuted career for the clever boy from the board school, but the fullest opportunity to rise' to ils highest posts, and we shall watch very closely the evidence before the Roval Commission.'"