A deputy head may be removed “on pleasure,” but the reasons for the removal must be laid before both Houses of Parliament. Appointments may be made without reference to age on the report of the deputy head, on account of technical or professional qualifications or the public interest. City postmasters, and such officers as inspectors and collectors, may be appointed without examination or reference to the rules for promotion. Examinations are dispensed with in other special cases. Removals may be made by the Governor in council. Reports of all examinations and of the entire civil service list must be laid before Parliament each session. Amendments have been made to the law in the direction of relieving from examination on their promotion men who have been long in the service, and an amendment of last session omitted some examinations altogether. It must be stated also that the service is not free from favoritism, and that influence is used, if not always necessary, to get in and to get on in it. The law has been gone around by means of the plea of “special qualifications,” and this evasion has sometimes been considered a political necessity on account of service to a minister or to the party generally. I suppose that the party in power favors its own adherents. The competitive system of England has a mischievous effect in the encouragement of the examinations to direct studies towards a service which nine in ten of the applicants will never reach. This evil, of numbers qualified but not appointed, has grown so great in Canada that it has lately been ordered that there shall be only one examination in each year.