THE NEED FOR MUNICIPAL REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1692, 7 March 1913, Page 4

THE NEED FOR MUNICIPAL REFORM.

In his interesting but somewhat vague statement in Auckland upon the necessity for municipal efficiency (which was summarised in an Auckland telegram in yesterday's paper), the Hon. F. M. B. Fisher placed his finger upon a serious weakness in municipal administration. Like everybody else who has kept his eyes open, and especially like those people in Wellington who have watched the working of the existing system of city government, _Mit. Fisher has much reason for his opposition to the deposition of administration in the hands of the clected councils. He does not suggest, we should imagine, that policy can be taken out of the hands of the elected councils. His plea for the handing over of administrative details to properlyappointed experts is one which will appeal very strongly to the Wellington public. This city has suffered much, directly and indirectly, from the adoption by the council of the work of administration in addition to its direction of policy. In the larger field of general government, there has hardly been any greater curse than the retention of the administrative side in the hands of the Executive which should concern itself only with policy. The Dominion and- a few other newspapers have constantly contended that the Executive should concern itself policy, as, it is for' the prosecution of policy that Governments arc elcctcd. The Government of the day, for instance, is not competent to take complete charge, whatever Government it may be, of the administration of the Civil Service —a fact which the firm establishment of the Civil Service 'Commission shows to be recogniscd by the nation. .

_ Mr. Fisher observed that in some cities there had been seen a tendency on the part of councillors, in order to obtain popularity, to manipulate the wagges of employees and grant indefensible "benefits" and concessions to the general public in rcspcci; of municipal undertakings. This is perfectly true, as Wellington citizens know very well' ' And it is equally true of the general Government in the past. Everybody who has no personal interest in denying it—which means nearly everybody who has thought about it—knows, and is ready to admit, that nothing has more deeply injured the national interest or operated so strongly to the debilitation of the public's political conscience, than the system of public works expenditure which has submitted the decision of the details of that expenditure to clccted delegates who, in most cases, arc quite incompetent to deal with the matter and whose incompetence is aggravated by their anxiety to place the securing of votes before the public interest. Mr. Fisher, in declaring that in municipal affairs there should become change which would put the cities under the control (so far as administration is concerned) of Efficiency and Honesty, instead of Sclf-Iriterest and Political Intrigue, has merely applied to. municipal • affairs the principle which honest dealing, and the national interest prescribe for the direction of the national Government. The principles which apply to the general Government are based upon universal truths which .apply equally to the government of cities and of smaller things too. The public knows how greatly the national interest has suffered from the system, which has made ability to "battle for grants for the district" the strongest' claim a candidate, for. Parliament has been able to put forward—the system that has for many years maintained a "Liberal" majority of ignorant "battlers" in the House. IV Minister for Customs has rendered a useful service by directing attention to the fact that this evil can and does; in other forms, contribute to the vitiation of municipal politics and the endangerment of the stability of municipal enterprises.