The Dominion. MONDAY, APRIL 29, 1912. EFFICIENCY IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1426, 29 April 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, APRIL 29, 1912. EFFICIENCY IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

» The enormous increase in th,e cost of Government in the United States which has long been occupying the attention of thoughtful people in America, and in connection with which PiiKsiDKXT Takt set up a commission of iiuiuiry witli t lit- idea of .netting to the hedroek cause, is worth noting just, now in view of the heavy increase in the national expenditure of this Dominion. President Taft's Commission of Keoiiorny and Efficiency has had the way cleured for it by h preliminary inwith a view to ascertaining the be3t lines on which the main inquiry should proceed. A great deal ol valuable information wa3 obtained, and from the data collected and the opinions expressed the conclusion was reached that the investigation should be conducted mluiik rJitlines of (he chief causes of waste. The Commission, without profcssii.'-; to havi- analysed closely these c-ames --indeed, ils reconiuiendatjoi! inei , "- ly was that the main inquiry should be 3 moif inlcnfivp study nf thr rlifIcrent cautci of waste which had b'jr.u,

discjused—brielly stated them to be as follow : —

ID Wa-le due to lark of a d.-linile prolamine »f publii,- biiMiip... CJ) '-*j —. ■hie t<, I-μ! ui-Miii-ation Cl> to--, due to iiiHlii-jiMit per-oniiel " : » ''"i'lli"-.- l<, pr<,v,',|,. i,,, ~,|,.( , ;1 ;1( ,, e<llllpuif.ll.

••>) Vaste due l(1 ineneetive n-e made of equipment provided. fli) WVtc due to bad methmk (7' l.u«p.s in contracting and piiiclia-ing. S) I."- diip to lad; of central direction and I'lHilj-iil.

The. chairman of the President's Ciiminission, Ml;. V. A. Cleveland, die well-known economist, who has been associated with several important commissions of inquiry on economic questions, in an i'litun-sting article in' the current issue of the American lln-li-ir of Ifrrinr* touches brie/ly on some of the matters forming the subject of inquiry. His reference to the general method of dealing with appropriations and estimates placed before Congress is worth quoting for its bearing on the conditions which exist in our own Parliament under present-day procedure :

One of the nlo>( conspicuous causes of Taste, he says, is inadequate provision for getting before Congress a definite budget. That is lo say, the Government of the I'nited States i-, without a plan; it is financed each year without a definite .scheme of work to be carried on; there is no means employed for giving consistency to action and for enabling Congress each year to act intelligently about questions of general policy. Although to Congress is given the power (0 determine what work is to be done, what organisation and equipment, shnll be provided, and what fluids' shall bo granted, the law governing appropriations and estimates does not provide for tho subniisMon of such inl'onnalion as will enable Congress or any member thereof to consider administrative proposals i'n terms of general welfare. Many appropriations are made annually for no better reason than that similar appropriations were made the year before; funds are provided in response to local demands and as a result of misrepresentations of persons who arc interested in special undertakings. . . .

It is true that in New Zealand we have what purports to he a general policy statement set forth each year in the Budget laid before Parliament, but how often is the policy outlined in the Budget adhered to, and how much do members know of the reasons for, or the merits of, tho votes appearing on' the Estimates which they are expected to deal with '? Had we not the spectacle only last year ( of improper expenditure allocated to the then Prime Minister's own electorate, and when the matter was brought up in the House even the Prime Minister himself admitted that the votes should not have been passed. Moreover, what is still worse, he admitted that he, the member for the district and Prime Minister at the time they were placed before, and passed by, Parliament, knew nothing about them. How can private members, without the opportunities possessed by a Prime Minister for securing information concerning proposed expenditure, expect to check the. votes of public money submitted for their approval when the head of the Government cannot do so ? How many millions of the public's money have been squandered in this way in New Zealand? And yet the "Liberal" party, so anxious is it to retain its power to buy the electorates with grants of various kinds at the public expense, persists in perpetuating the. system which permits this state of things to continue 1

President Taft's commission, as was to he expected, makes, a strong point of efficient personnel. It is an accepted fact, the chairman points out, that tho local ofiices of the Government are largely controlled for political patronage, and bo adds: ''Wherever the spoils system is still in effect inefficiency must continue." The motive, of a man must, necessarily be "pull" instead of "push"—his tenure and his opportunity depend not on a record of accomplishment but on his standing at political headquarters. Matters, of course, arc not so bad as that here, but they are bad enough. Apart altogether from the question of appointments to the Public Service, the question of advancement in the service is a very vital one, not merely to those who hold public offices, but to the public itself. One of the proposals of the Reform party is to have a thorough investigation of the Public Service of the country, with a view to placing it on a more satisfactory basis and to remove it beyond the" demoralising influences of political control. It is further worth noting that Mn. Cleveland, in his review of the work of President T.aft's commission, records "that in every . subject into which detailed inquiry has been made waste has been found, and in some the waste due to process or technique alone runs as high as 75 per cent."