FACILITATING VOLUNTEERING BY CIVIL SERVANTS.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2477, 2 June 1915, Page 6

FACILITATING VOLUNTEERING BY CIVIL SERVANTS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Complaints have been frequent of late that the Public Service Commissioner is discouraging Civil Servants from enlisting, or refrains from affording facilities to those who desire to for our country in this time of national peril. It is said that already some of the offices are short-handed, and. that normal work can only bo performed lay sweating those who remain. [ venture to assert that the Public Service Commissioner (or the Government) could within a very short time relieve any such congestion, and at the same time enable a large number of officials to volunteer for the front, by merely dispensing with all detail uot absolutely necessary to the carrying on of the business of the Dominion. Many people know that of late years a tremendous amount of clerical work has been initiated and in various Government offices, and this has, in turn, extended to local bodies, creating considerable employment, and possibly leading in some measure to increased efficiency. Much of this work is of a character that the best commercial concerns would regard as surplusage and waste of effort, and its cost quite out of proportion to its value from any point of view. In some cases it is the outcome of our unfortunate system of allowing faddists to occupy responsible positions, and indulge in eccentricities to their ovrn glorification, but at tho expense of the State. There are voluminous returns in many Departments which keep busy an army of com. pilers, scribes, printers, and others, hut are seldom read or referred to, and could be done away with for two or three years without the country being a bit the worse for it. Take, for example, the schedules and returns which have to be furnished in connection with our over-developed education system, the annual returns for the land and mortgage tax, and in connection with the valuation of lands. Could not theso be greatly curtailed, or possibly be done away with altogether, without crippling the efficiency of tho Departments concerned? By exorcising a little restraint in tho matter of papers called for and printed, Parliament itself could assist in sotting free patriotic Civil Servants who desire to volunteer. but aro deterred from doing so by the feeling that they cannot bo spared from their work. May I respectfully commend these ideas fo tho nowers that be? —I am, etc., ' F. P. CORKILL. New Plymouth.