The Dominion. FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1912. A BAIT FOR THE DISAPPOINTED.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1436, 10 May 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1912. A BAIT FOR THE DISAPPOINTED.

The full report of the Prime Minister's speech at Balclutha is now to hand, and it contains some points which are worth attention. It seems that, as on several other occasions, Mr. Mackenzie made reference to the impossibility of the Government of the country being carried on satisfactorily by the present number of Ministers, and ho also referred to the state of the Civil Service, which he considered called for attention with a view to improvement. With a good deal of what the Prime Minister says concerning the Civil. Service we are in agreement. The need for the introduction of new methods in the service has been mentioned at different times, and the proposal to set up a Commission of Inquiry has been advocated by the Reform party as a part of its programme. Mr. Mackenzie, however, appears to have some curious and quite erroneous views as to the duties'of Ministers in relation to the public Departments. Apparently he imagines that it is their business to attend to the myriad technical details associated with the working of the Public Service as well as to the general policy of administration. It is of course quite absurd to pretend that Ministors, even if they had tho time, could do more than direct in a general way the work of the Departments under their control. For one thing, they have not had the requisite training to enable them to attempt a task which only years of experience and special capacity would justify anyone in attempting. But that is too obvious to call for argument. When Mr. Mackenzie says: "They were told that it was not so much their administrators that were at fault during recent years as their administration, in which case it must be their Departmental heads who were at fault, he not only docs a very grave injustice to the Departmental heads, but confuses two very different things. There may be, and there are, weaknesses in office administration, but tho administration of the country's affairs that has been the subject of so much complaint does not refer to office administration, but to the general lines of policy laid down by Ministers, and which Departmental heads have to follow. For instance, in connection with the straightening of the Hutt railway the Government engineers could have carried out the work much more cheaply and much more expeditiously had they been given a free hand, but the policy of tho Government under the co-operative works system hampered them, and the cost of the work in consequence was enormous.. So also in other directions.

Then, again, Mr. Mackenzie, in pressing, his pica for more Ministers, pointed out that Mr. Myers had control of the Departments of liailways, Defence, and Finance, and that railways alone was sufficient for any one man to undertake. Here also we are finite in agreement with tho Ptuiie Minister. Mr. Myers, capahlc as we helievc him to lie, is ludicrously overburdened with three such portfolios. But why is this the case? AVhy should not one or more of these important Departments be passed on to other members of the Cabinet who have only comparatively unimportant Departments to attend to'/ The reason, of course, is that there is no one in the Ministry outside of Mr. Myers qualified to take them over. In choosing his Cabinet, Mr. Mackenzie was in the unhappy position uf having to attempt tu conciliate, conflicting interests, and party needs were, as lias been too often'the case, made paramount to tho country's interests, And it b party, acccasiliesn pi purlmpa it

would be more correct to say the necessities of the Mackenzie Ministry, that have given birth to this cry for more Ministers. It is necessary to placate some of tiic disappointed members of the party, and the only "way to do this is to hold out the hope of fresh portfolios to go round amongst then)—and "hang the expense." Mn. Mackenzie is a shrewd man, and he must know that a very largo proportion of the public are quite well aware that if _ Ministers attended to their duties instead of travelling about the country electioneering, the work of government could be carried on without any undue strain on anyone. Moreover, he. must know that at the. present time the proportion of Ministers to members and to population is lyululy large in New Zealand when compared with other countries. When, therefore, in face of these facts, he makes the outcry for more Ministers it must be plain that he considers his position a parlous one, and that desperate measures must be resorted to if he is to successfully tide over the troubles ahead. We do not believe that he has any prospect of escaping defeat when Parliament meets, but one thing is very certain, and that is that this bait of prospective portfolios which he is dangling before some of the disappointed members of the Government party ; n the. hope of holding their support is not likely to materialise during the, present Parliament. Nor is the proposal likely to strengthen the party in the eyes of the country.