There are positions for which no competition is held, but where a single person is nominated subject to an examination to test his competence. Some of these places might very well be open to competition, and, indeed, there are still strange anomalies in various branches of the civil service; the strangest being the fact that the employees of the Education Department are, almost invariably, appointed without any examination at all, and this is true not only of inspectors, whose work requires peculiar qualifications, but even of clerks of the abstractor class. There are, however, positions in the civil service where the technical knowledge or experience needed are really such as to render a competition difficult. Even in manual occupations this is believed to be the case. In the royal dockyards, for example, although the apprentices are recruited by open competition, the artificers are appointed subject to a pass examination touching only their skill in their trade, while the foremen are usually selected by a limited competition which includes something more. Provincial postmasters also form a class by themselves. Until a few years ago they owed their positions to political influence; for long after the members of Parliament had lost all control over other appointments, they retained the power to fill any vacancies that might occur in the postal service within their constituencies, provided, of course, they belonged to the party in power. But this last remnant of parliamentary patronage was abolished in 1896, and provincial postmasters are now appointed on the recommendation of the surveyors of the postal districts.[170:1] [Sidenote: Nomination without Examination.] Finally there are the appointments made entirely without examination of any kind, either because examination is dispensed with under Clause VII of the Order in Council of 1870, or because the position is one excepted altogether from the operation of the Order. Such posts are chiefly at the top or at the bottom of the service. They include positions of responsibility at one end of the scale; and those of messengers,[170:2] porters and servants at the other. [Sidenote: Promotions.]