Report.
to be elected for admission into the public service on that occasion. The election having taken place, those who have succeeded should be distributed among the offices to which appointments are to be made, on the footing of probationers. The precise mode in which the successful candidates should be allotted to the several departments will require some consideration; but there will be no difficulty in it which may not easily be overcome. One obvious course of proceeding would be to send to each department a list of those who are selected for appointments, leaving to the head of each office to choose from among them as vacancies occur. Or it might be thought desirable that the Board of Examiners should recommend particular men to particular departments, according to their capacities, the head of the department in each case exercising his discretion in accepting them or not; or the choice might be given to the candidates themselves, some restriction being imposed to prevent any from choosing offices for which their peculiar education had not fitted them. If more have been elected (in order to maintain the average) than there is immediate demand for, they should be sent as supernumerary clerks to the offices in which the work happens to be the heaviest, unless there is any special service upon which they can with advantage be temporarily employed, or they might wait to take their turn. As vacancies occur from time to time before the next general examination, the supernumeraries should be appointed to them, and, if the whole have not been placed before that time, it will only be necessary to make the next batch the smaller. Probation to be retained.It would be desirable to retain the probation as at present, rendering it more efficient by precise reports of the conduct of the probationers.
Competing examination to be open to all. In the examinations which we have recommended, we consider that the right of competing should be open to all persons, of a given age, subject only, as before suggested, to the necessity of their giving satisfactory references to persons able to speak to their moral conduct and character, and of producing medical certificates to the effect that they have no bodily infirmity likely to incapacitate them for the public service. It is only by throwing the examinations entirely open that we can hope to attract the proper class of candidates.
Subjects of the examination.
The choice of the subjects to be comprehended in the examination, as well as the mode in which the examina-