STAMPED OUT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2324, 4 December 1914, Page 12

STAMPED OUT

POLITICAL PATRONAGE IN PUBLIC SERVICE MERE ALONE NOW COUNTS THE DAY OF THE TOUT ENDED One of the first and best of the Roform measures placed upon the Statute Book by the Massey Government was the Publio Service Act of 1912. Thiß Aot ended at a stroke the vicious system of political control and substituted control by Commissioners who are directly responsible to Parliament. The Public Service is now shielded from that evil thing, political influonce, which was given free play during the Wardist regime. The just and equitable Bystem of Commissioner control, has been adopted in praotically every progressive demooraoyin the world. , I.* is ootdemned root and brahoh by the Wardists, who thereby prove themselves Torws and reactionaries of a deplorable type. No definite argument has been advanced by the Wardists against the aystem of Commissioner control except th« untrue assertion that its adoption bai removed the Public Service from th« control of Parliament and the people. Apart from tho fact that no powoi exists to make a Board of Commission, era independent of Parliament, the Public Service' Act, by speoifio provision, makes the Public Service Commissioners directly responsible to Parliament, »nd subject to removal by. a vote of both Houses. The Commissioners are lesponsible to Parliament, and therefore to the people who elect the Parliament. In the days when the Wardists were in power neither Parliament nor the people exercised any control over tie Publio Service. . , What ithe Job-Hunters Want. . The Bystem which tho Wardists are anxiouß to revive was one under which practically unlimited power waa vested in the Ministers of the day. All offices in the Public Service Tens in their gift, _ and they 'were accessiblu to tho solicitations of any of their supporters in or out of Parliament who cared to ipproach them. The WardUts frankly pine for a return of the days when they had unrestricted liberty'to solicit jobs for their friends and supporters, and when the great majority of tho people were left out in the cold. In other words, they are asking tho eleotors to return to power a party which abused its trust, so that it may do them a further injury, and re-estab-lish, the reign of autocratio tyranny, and injustice. The Publio Service Act has been triumphantly vindicated. ■ Not only has justice replaced jobbery, but the Commissioners have substituted business methods for the slackness and inefficiency that developed under the system of Ministerial autocracy. Matters have already gon« so'far that the Commissioners are able to point to economies totalling not less than £(55,000 a year. It follows that under the Wardist regime this sum w?,s annually ' thrown away, without benefit either to the public or to Public Sarvants. The olectors of the country had to foot the bill for this waste. , What Roform Has Done. . Publio Servants are better paid now than thev have ever been, and their lot has been in every way improved. In addition to various other advantages, they havo been' granted a'-Boarcr of Appeal, 'which" I 'was : deriied them'' in the days when they had to aooept the decisions of Ministerial autocrats as law. One of the absurd catoh-ories invented by tho Wardists asserts that the Publio Servioe is "seething with discontent." Ridiculiug this phrase the "Publio Servioe Journal" remarked recently that it might be classified as an "anoient gag," which had never been defined by those who used it.. The effect of the Publio Servioe Act has been to substitute justioe arid equity for tyranny and favouritism. In addition, businesii methods and economy have replaced slackness and waste, and the lot of .Public Servants has been in every way improved. „ A Public Servant to-day is the servant of the State, as he should be, and not a servant of the Ministry of tho day, as he used to be. The Wardists are anxious that the whofe of this good work should be undone in order that the public purse and the Public Seivioe may again be placed at. T.he mercy of vote-huntTfig politicians. The Reform Party has placed the Public Servioe beyond the reach of political patrona.ee, and ensured for thspeople a Public Service free from the evil influences of Ministerial pntronnee. DO THE ELECTORS WANT TO RE. TURN TO THE OLD DECRADINO. AND WASTEFUL CONDITION OF THINCS BY RETURNINC TO OF* FICE WARDISM, PLUS THE REP FEDERATION?