NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1537, 5 September 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

'With the defeat of the Seddon-Ward-Mackenzie Government in New Zealand there also came an end to the long boycott against The Dominion. This newspaper was the only one which steadfastly and continuously criticised the misdeeds of the Administration." With this sentence the Melbourne monthly Liberty and Progress prefaces some interesting comment upon Australian Labour Government methods. '-'Spoils to the victors" is the watchword of all those political parties which lack souls and which take a gross materialistic view of society—the watchword of Tammany Hall, of the' New Zealand "Liberal-Labour" party of unlamented memory, and of Australian Labour "bossism." The Federal Government has notyet dared to boycott the big dailies in the matter of State advertisements; but it indulges its tastes by "distributing advertisements with a lavish hand among all the little Socialistic and Labour newspapers which back it up; not'because there is any possibility of many of those to whom the advertisements are addressed "ever seeing them in sucliquarters, but because* the cash helps on the good cause." Liberty and Progress goes on to' say : —

This method of giving away the public money in quarters where there is no possibility of return is not a. fraudulent misuse ot such funds. It is simply a quite honourable political method of putting the" money of tho public into the pockets of friends and supporters. Quito a little fuss, however, was made in tho House over the Commonwealth Bank advertisements. The Governor certainly saw that these advertisements' were distributed in the proper quarters, but he did the business through Messrs. Gordon and Goteh. Consequently the small newspapers were only paid their usual rates, instead .of thfeo times as much which, it appears, they expect from the Government printer. The Prime Minister said he could not control the Governor of the Bank in this matter, but he seemed to regret that tho newspapers, especially those on his own side, should have been, deprived of the opportunity of taking their usual generous dip of the good things going in tho Publio Treasury. However, he promised to have a talk with the Governor about the matter. . - '

It is really cold comfort to know that the policy of public squandering and bribery—for that is what it amounts to—which New Zealand has had to endure in the past at the hands of its administrators is not peculiar to any single Government.

It will be interesting to note whether the Massey Government will submit tamely to_ the action of the Legislative Council in setting aside for twelve months the Bill to make the Upper House elective. It must be perfectly obvious that the decision of the Council in this respect is der signed to delay the passage of the measure into law—that the merits of the Bill count for nothing in the decision arrived at. How much better informed will the Council be twelve months hence than it is now as to the views of the public concerning the details of the Bill? Not one fraction. On the other hand, had the Council taken the Bill in Committee and threshed out the merits _of proposals to give effect to the elective principle, very useful service would have been rendered both in the direction of informing tho public on the details of the Bill and in the way of offering suggestions for remedying weaknesses in it. It can be taken for granted that the Council as at present constituted is opposed to tho Bill, and it is therefore the duty of the Prime Minister, unless he is prepared to bow down to the will of that august Assembly, to take such steps as will make it clear that the policy proposals of the Government must go through. He has.not a majority in the Council at the present time favourable to the Reform policy, and it is his business to see that that position is altered at the earliest possible moment.

The report of the Public Service Commission was laid before Parliament too late last evening to permit of any close examination of the findings of the Commissioners. From a cursory glance through the seventyodd pages of printed matter, however, it would seem that so far as their order of reference permitted, the Commissioners have gone very: exhaustively into tho conditions existing in the Public Service of the Dominion, and have, as a result of their investigations, been 1 able to put forward some valuable suggestions for bettering things, both iff the interest of tho employees of the State and for tho benefit of the country. As was to be expected, the non-recognition of merit, and the use of "back-door" influences, are included amongst the evils which have detrimentally affected the Service; and the Commissioners arrived at the conclusion that a vital step in the direction of thorough efficiency, combined with economy, lies in tho abolition of political control. Thoy recommend that there should bo one controlling head for the whole Service, to whom will bo entrusted—(a) the business policy: (b) tho general organisation aiicl working methods; (c) the staff engagements, promotions, transfers, and the general handling of officers,

Cabinet, it is suggested, should settle the broad lines of policy on which tho business of the country should bo conducted, but the general organisation and working methods of the staff, etc., should be loft to a Board of Management. This Board the Commissioners propose should consist of three persons, one of whom should be appointed from within the Service, and the two others should be chosen from outside, and be men of wide business experience, who have had training in large organisations and accustomed to the handling of a largo staff. The report deals at considerable length with Departmental organisation, and also with the existing system of keeping the public accounts, which is condemned as "unnecessarily voluminous, complicated, and confusing." Various suggestions are put forward by way of improvement, but time does not permit of any close analysis of the recommendations under this head. It would seem from a somewhat hurried scrutiny of the Commissioners' report that it is a very valuable one, and that many of the proposals put forward could be adopted with advantage to everyone but tho incompetent and the "back-door" entrant to the Public Service.