CHAPTER VIII 
THE CIVIL SERVICE 
As in the United Kingdom, the Dominions all recognize 
the principle of a permanent Civil Service to conduct the 
executive and administrative work of the departments. 
But there are certain broad differences between the cases 
of the Dominions and the United Kingdom. In the first 
place, the ministers of the Dominions are expected, as is 
natural in view of the less complicated conditions prevailing 
there, to do much more routine work than is done in the 
United Kingdom, and, partly as a cause of this, partly as 
a result, the Dominions do not show a Civil Service com- 
parable with the upper division of the Imperial Civil Service, 
nor normally do civil servants play so important a part 
in the Colonial Government. To some extent this may be 
attributed to the democratic desire to render all posts 
available to all, and to permit entry to the Civil Service by 
an elementary examination followed by routine work and 
eventual promotion. In the second place, the whole system, 
as applied in Australasia, is one of elaborate legal regulation, 
while the Home Civil Service depends on Executive Orders 
in Council, subject only to the Pension Acts and the ordinary 
law. An English civil servant holds still at pleasure, but 
by practice he holds during good behaviour. There are no 
boards established or rules laid down as to his dismissal, 
but practically he has the fullest investigation, and is 
removed only on the decision of a minister of the Crown 
acting for the Crown. Again, in the Dominions promotions 
* This is still the case in the Colonies save where otherwise expressly 
provided, and the royal instructions to the State Governors and New 
Zealand and Newfoundland require it when law does not otherwise provide. 
Canada generally is much less fond of legal regulation than Australasia in 
this as in other matters. See Shenton v. Smith, [1895] A. C. 229 ; Dunn v. 
Reg., [189611 Q. B. 116. Of. 189711 Q. B. 555; below, p. 349. note 2.