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AbstractMany Amrican Party workers will agree with this Canadian editor, but few have the courage to express their viewpoint so courageously. The NATIONAL MUNICIPAL REVIEW does not agree with Mr. Davis, but believes that his viewpoint will be of interest to our readers.

From 1905, when Saskatchewan was made a province, to 1911, the Liberal party in Saskatchewan controlled both the federal and the provincial patronage. These six years gave it an enviable opportunity for laying firm foundations for a political organization. During the next ten years the federal patronage was in the hands of a Conservative or a Union party but the more important provincial patronage remained with the Liberals. Then in their last eight years of uninterrupted power, the Saskatchewan Liberals once more had the support of a federal Liberal government. Thus for twenty-four years after the formation of the province the Liberal rule over Saskatchewan was uninterrupted, and for fourteen of those years the Liberals also ruled over the Dominion. Until a few years before its defeat in 1929, it seemed as if the longer the party remained in power the stronger grew the party organization. It is this long period of development under favourable conditions which makes the Liberal organization in Saskatchewan worthy of close study.The Liberal party in Saskatchewan, like Liberal and Conservative parties in the other provinces, had two sides to its organization—one formal and ineffective, the other informal and effective. In its formal aspect it resembled party organization elsewhere. The Liberals in each polling sub-division elected one or two representatives. These met to elect a constituency executive. Each constituency executive had one representative on the central council of the provincial party, on which there also sat the executive elected at a party convention. This formal organization, which paid so strict a homage to democratic theory in its pyramidical structure based upon the people's will, was unimportant. The constituency organization, for example, did very little; it met, perhaps, once a year. The formal organization constituted a democratic façade which hid from the common gaze the naked autocracy of effective party management. In the effective party organization which did the work, won the elections, and consequently possessed the reality of political power, appointments were from the top down.

SUMMARYThe functions of the State have so expanded that the public service has become of utmost importance: The need for an efficient civil service led England to abolish patronage in making appointments to the service: Similar reforms were attempted in Australia as early as 1862, but it was not until the passing of the New South Wales Public Service Act in 1895 that the reforms found very adequate expression: The operation of this Act has done much to improve the quality of the New South Wales public service, although the principles underlying the Act have been constantly violated: The present recruitment policy fails to attract the most desirable recruits to the service: There is urgent need for building up an administrative division to deal with the higher work of Government.