4. The official receives the regular pecuniary compensation of a nor¬mally fixed salary and the old age security provided by a pension. The salary is not measured like a wage in terms of work done, but accord¬ing to 'status,' that is, according to the kind of function (the `rank') and, in addition, possibly, according to the length of service. The relatively great security of the official's income, as well as the rewards of social esteem, make the office a sought-after position, especially in countries which no longer provide opportunities for colonial profits. In such countries, this situation permits relatively low salaries for officials.
5. The official is set for a `career' within the hierarchical order of the public service. He moves from the lower, less important, and lower paid to the higher positions. The average official naturally desires a mechanical fixing of the conditions of promotion: if not of the offices, at least of the salary levels. He wants these conditions fixed in terms of `seniority,' or possibly according to grades achieved in a developed system of expert examinations. Here and there, such examinations actually form a char¬acter indelebilis of the official and have lifelong effects on his career. To this is joined the desire to qualify the right to office and the increasing tendency toward status group closure and economic security: All of this makes for a tendency to consider the offices as `prebends' of those who are qualified by educational certificates. The necessity of taking general personal and intellectual qualifications into consideration, irrespective of the often subaltern character of the educational certificate, has led to a con¬dition in which the highest political offices, especially the positions of 'ministers,' are principally filled without reference to such certificates.