NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 849, 22 June 1910, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

It is hard to believe that the Minister for Railways could have been responsible for the issuing of the notice, which we publish elsewhere, to the railway workshops employees at Pctone. At a time when the whole country is filled with the desire to place its defences on a satisfactory footing, and when the private citizen and the private employer aro being called on to display their patriotism by personal self-sacrifice, it is a shockingly bad example for the Government to set. If volunteers in Government employ are to have their wages stopped when they attend public parades, what encouragement is offered to the citizen soldier'! and how can the private employer be expected to show any greater liberal-. ity.to his employees'! A bad blunder has been committed and should be remedied in time to-day to permit the employees concerned to take part in the official reception to the new Governor without being forced to make a sacrifice which they can ill afford, but which is a mere financial trifle to the State. It is announced to-day that the Commissioner of Taxes, Me. P. Heyes, and an officer of his Department, Mr. J. P. Dugdale, Inspecting Valuer, have been called on to resign their offices in the public service. This, presumably, is the outcome of the charges made last year by an' officer of the Land and Income Tax Department concerning which so much secrecy was insisted on by the Prime Minister. It will probably be remembered that the Government appointed two judges of the Supremo Court to conduct certain inquiries into matters arising out of the allegations made. What those inquiries were and the result of them no one outside of the judges and the Ministers of the Crown is in a position to say. Sir Joseph Ward refused even to disclose the nature of the charges. Now we have had a second inquiry, and :as a result of it two ufficcrs, high- in the public service, have been called on to resign. Regarding the merits of the matter the public has been left in profound ignoranro. Apart from the very unpleasant stories which have been set in circulation, possibly as the result of the extreme secrecy insisted on by Slit JodhPa Ward, it is quite manifest that it is time the public was told what the trouble really is. . It would be a perfectly monstrous thing to suggest that public servants of high standing should be dismissed after a secret inquiry, and the grounds for this drastic action kept secret. Whatever necessity may exist for withholding from the public the private business of those having relations with the taxing Department no good reason can bo advanced for covering up further the charges made against the officers of the Department who have been called on i to resign and their replies thereto. The Prime Minister probably will recognise that it is now time to ta,ke the public into his confidence and clear away the mystery with which I this very unpleasant business has been surrounded. It is due not only to the public, who should be given an opportunity of forming an opinion for themselves as to the justice of the course pursued; but in fairness to the men chiefly concerned. There are a number of other aspects which call for comment, but we shall reserve our discussion of these until Sir Joseph Ward makes known the grounds upon which he and his colleagues have acted. Practically every New Zealander who, on returning from a .visit to Australia, has given to the press his opinions on railways management has been very emphatic in praising the Commissioner system-and in asserting the preference of tho Australian public for that system as against the system of Ministerial management. Mr. Millar himself had to admit that tho Australian public and Governments prefer the Commissioner system, against which he could bring nothing stronger than his opinion that Australia is wrong in its ideas. When every Government, save .that of Tasmania (the shocking railway example of tho Commonwealth), every public man, and every newspaper of any consequence in the Commonwealth declare for the Commissioner system, it is easy to decide just how much importance to attach to the ideas of Mr. Millar. Both in New South Wales and in Victoria, to be sure, the Railway Commissioners arc subjected now and then to se-. vere (criticism, but we do not know_ of any case in which the criticism has even suggested an alteration of the system. On Monday of last week, for example, tho Melbourne Age, a paper for which Mr. Millar and most of our Radicals have, a deep respect, made a long and singularly ferocious attack upon the Victorian Railway Commissioners. The occasion of tho article is of not much importance, but, as a matter of fact, it was the proposal of the Commissioners to erect a new wooden station at Princes Bridge, which tho Age considered to be "a transparent device to shelve the of electrification." Tho Age, as we have said, was extraordinarily fierce in its assault upon the Commissioners, yet its article concluded with tho following sentence, tho importance and significance of which cannot be disre-' garded : "We are all believers in the principle of Vommissiuntrship control, but that principle does not bind us to tolerate the sway of any particular set of Commissioners-who have proved themselves the slaves of obsolete ideas and.methods."