cHap. vir] + THE CIVIL SERVICE 345
as a rule depend in part on an authority external to the
minister ; in the United Kingdom the minister is supreme,
subject merely to the right of the aggrieved officer to appeal
to the Treasury, not for a reversal of the decision to pass
him over, which would not be possible, but for some considera-
tion in other ways. The legal rules of the Dominions are
rendered no doubt necessary by the greater influence
possessed in small populations by a Civil Service, which has
resulted in the determination to place the Civil Service
beyond the ordinary sphere of politics so as to avoid the
intolerable pressure else likely to be exercised on ministers,
and it is significant that similar methods of dealing with the
question of postal servants in England have been discussed.
Canada shows a somewhat unhappy record in the matter
of the Civil Service system. In the very beginning it was
found necessary to lay down in great detail to the Lieutenant-
Governor of Nova Scotia! the outlines of the true system of a
Civil Service exempt from political interference, and from the
beginning Nova Scotia was unwilling to accept the doctrine.
Things, however, gradually improved, though very slowly,
and the principle was laid down that the tenure of office,
though at pleasure, was also, as in the United Kingdom,
during good behaviour—in fact if not in law. But this posi-
tion was qualified by several facts. In the first place, the
appointment of public officers was always a matter in which
political influence had a good deal to do in the first place ;
then promotions were often influenced by political considera-
tions, and if the holders of office were not dismissed when
a new Government came in they might in other ways be
made to feel that their presence in the office was not desired,
as there were others whose claims demanded the close
attention of ministers. In 18622 in a dispatch to the
Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward Island, stress was
laid by the Secretary of State on the most unsatisfactory
state of things which had prevailed in Nova Scotia, and the
Provincial Government were urged to adopt the system of
* Parl. Pap., H. C. 621, 1848, p. 29.
New Brunswick Assembly Journals, 1862, n. 192.
