| Privy purse | £60,000 |
| Salaries of household | 131,260 |
| Expenses of household | 172,500 |
| Royal bounty, &c. | 13,200 |
| Unappropriated | 8,040 |
In addition the queen might, on the advice of her ministers, grant pensions up to £1200 per annum, in accordance with a resolution of the House of Commons of February 18th, 1834, “to such persons as have just claims on the royal beneficence or who, by their personal services to the crown, by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science and attainments in literature and art, have merited the gracious consideration of the sovereign and the gratitude of their country.” The service of these pensions increased the annual sum devoted to support the dignity of the crown and the expenses of the household to about £409,000. The list of pensions must be laid before parliament within thirty days of 20th June. Thus the civil list was reduced in amount, and relieved from the very charges which gave it its name as distinct from the statement of military and naval charges. It now really only dealt with the support of the dignity and honour of the crown and the royal household. The arrangement was most successful, and during the last three reigns there was no application to parliament for the discharge of debts incurred on the civil list.
The death of Queen Victoria rendered it necessary that
a renewed provision should be made for the civil list; and King
Edward VII., following former precedents, placed
unreservedly at the disposal of parliament his hereditary
revenues. A select committee of the House of
Civil List
Act 1901.
Commons was appointed to consider the provisions of the civil
list for the crown, and to report also on the question of grants
for the honourable support and maintenance of Her Majesty the
Queen and the members of the royal family. The committee in
their conclusions were guided to a considerable extent by the
actual civil list expenditure during the last ten years of the last
reign, and made certain recommendations which, without undue
interference with the sovereign’s personal arrangements, tended
towards increased efficiency and economy in the support of the
sovereign’s household and the honour and dignity of the crown.
On their report was based the Civil List Act 1901, which established
the new civil list. The system that the hereditary revenues
should as before be paid into the exchequer and be part of the
consolidated fund was maintained. The amount payable for
the civil list was increased from £385,000 to £470,000. In the
application of this sum the number of classes of expenditure
to which separate amounts were to be appropriated was increased
from five to six. The following was the new arrangement of
classes:—1st class, Their Majesties’ privy purse, £110,000;
2nd class, salaries of His Majesty’s household and retired allowances,
£125,800; 3rd class, expenses of His Majesty’s household,
£193,000; 4th class, works (the interior repair and decoration
of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle), £20,000; 5th class,
royal bounty, alms and special services, £13,200; 6th class,
unappropriated, £8000. The system relating to civil list pensions,
established by the Civil List Act 1837, continued to apply, but
the pensions were not regarded as chargeable on the sum paid
for the civil list. The committee also advised that the mastership
of the Buckhounds should not be continued; and the king, on
the advice of his ministers, agreed to accept their recommendation.
The maintenance of the royal hunt thus ceased to be a
charge on the civil list. The annuities of £20,000 to the prince
of Wales, of £10,000 to the princess of Wales, and of £18,000 to
His Majesty’s three daughters, were not included in the civil
list, though they were conferred by the same act. Other grants
made by special acts of parliament to members of the royal
family were also excluded from it; these were £6000 to the
princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, £6000 to the princess
Louise (duchess of Argyll), £25,000 to the duke of Connaught,
£6000 to the duchess of Albany, £6000 to the princess Beatrice
(Henry of Battenberg), and £3000 to the duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
It may be interesting to compare with the British civil list the corresponding figures in other countries. These are as follows, the figures being those, for convenience, of 1905. Spain, £280,000, exclusive of allowances to members of the royal family; Portugal, £97,333, in addition to £1333 to the queen-consort—total Figures in other countries. grant to the royal family, £116,700; Italy, £602,000, from which was deducted £16,000 for the children of the deceased Prince Amedeo, duke of Aosta, £16,000 to Prince Tommaso, duke of Genoa, and £40,000 to Queen Margherita; Belgium, £140,000; Netherlands, £50,000, with, in addition, £4000 for the maintenance of the royal palaces; Germany, £770,500 (Krondotations Rente), the sovereign also possessing large private property (Kronfideikommiss und Schatullgüter), the revenue from which contributed to the expenditure of the court and the members of the royal family; Denmark, £55,500, in addition to £6600 to the heir-apparent; Norway, £38,888; Sweden, £72,700; Greece, £52,000, which included £4000 each from Great Britain, France and Russia; Austria-Hungary, £941,666, made up of £387,500 as emperor of Austria out of the revenues of Austria, and £554,166 as king of Hungary out of the revenues of Hungary; Japan, £300,000; Rumania, £47,000, in addition to revenues from certain crown lands; Servia, £48,000; Bulgaria, £40,000, besides £30,000 for maintenance of palaces, &c.; Montenegro, £8300; Russia had no civil list, the sovereign having all the revenue from the crown domains (actual amount unknown, but supposed to amount to over £4,000,000); the president of the French Republic had a salary of £24,000 a year, with a further £24,000 for expenses; and the president of the United States had a salary of $50,000 (from 1909, $75,000).
CIVIL SERVICE, the generic name given to the aggregate of all the public servants, or paid civil administrators and clerks, of a state. It is the machinery by which the executive, through the various administrations, carries on the central government of the country.
British Empire.—The appointments to the civil service until the year 1855 were made by nomination, with an examination not sufficient to form an intellectual or even a physical test. It was only after much consideration and almost years of discussion that the nomination system was abandoned. Various commissions reported on the civil service, and orders in council were issued. Finally in 1855 a qualifying examination of a stringent character was instituted, and in 1870 the principle of open competition was adopted as a general rule. On the report of the Playfair Commission (1876), an order in council was issued dividing the civil service into an upper and lower division. The order in council directed that a lower division should be constituted, and men and boy clerks holding permanent positions replaced the temporary assistants and writers. The “temporary” assistant was not found to be advantageous to the service. In December 1886 a new class of assistant clerks was formed to replace the men copyists. In 1887 the Ridley Commission reported on the civil service establishment. In 1890 two orders in council were issued based on the reports of the Ridley Commission, which sat from 1886 to 1890. The first order constituted what is now known as the second division of the civil service. The second order in council concerned the officers of the 1st class; and provision was made for the possible promotion of the second division clerks to the first division after eight years’ service.
The whole system is under the administration of the civil service commissioners, and power is given to them, with the approval of the treasury, to prescribe the subjects of examination, limits of age, &c. The age is fixed for compulsory retirement at sixty-five. In exceptional cases a prolongation of five years is within the powers of the civil service commissioners. The examination for 1st class clerkships is held concurrently with that of the civil service of India and Eastern cadetships in the colonial service. Candidates can compete for all three or for two. In addition to the intellectual test the candidate must fulfil the conditions of age (22 to 24), must present recommendations as to character, and pass a medical examination. This examination approximates closely to the university type of education. Indeed, there is little chance of success except for candidates who have had a successful university career, and frequently, in addition, special preparation by a private teacher. The subjects include the language and literature of England, France, Germany, Italy, ancient Greece and Rome, Sanskrit and Arabic, mathematics (pure and applied), natural science (chemistry, physics, zoology, &c.), history (English, Greek, Roman and general modern), political economy and
