POLITICAL COLOUR.

Evening Star, Issue 22448, 19 September 1936, Page 14

POLITICAL COLOUR.

In the House of Representatives yesterday Mr Coates made some remarks to which Ministers might give more than passing thought. A principle is embodied in the member for Kaipara’s comments that reaches to. the very root of political integrity. The Mortgagors and Lessees’ Rehabilitation Bill was under discussion, and Mr Coates declaimed that the Government was pursuing a policy of removing members of various institutions and replacing them with individuals friendly to the •Labour movement. Such a statement might be taken to imply, more than is justified by the actual position. Immediately practices in the United States come to the mind, where with a change in the Administration wholesale dismissals and new appointments occur in the Civil Service, the magistracy, and other departments of State. There is no such suggestion in the present case. What gave rise to Mr Coates’s complaint is a provision in a danse of the Bill above mentioned that with the passing of the measure members of the Court of Review shall be deemed to have vacated their offices, bat shall be

eligible for reappointment. It is provided also that all adjustment commissions established under fhe Mortgagors and Tenants’ Relief Act are abolished, but the members- thereof shall b© eligible for reappointment. It may be argued that the members of the bodies under discussion are not generally regarded as holding permanent positions. They are appointed to perform special duties, and it is not unnatural that the Government should desire to see the work carried out by men in sympathy with its policy.. At the same time, there is no justification for the inference that Cabinet is going to make a clean sweep of the men forming these bodies and put others of the “ right colour ” in their places. If this were done there would bo a strong feeling of resentment right through the Dominion. In the course of the debate Mr Forbes said that when his Government was in power the question of selecting the best men came before all other considerations. Mr Nash made an effective and reassuring reply to the criticisms that had been passed, and its tenor was on the lines of the principle enunciated by the Leader of the Opposition, stressing that the Government was taking power under the Bill to reappoint those members of the bodies concerned who were doing their job well. The Finance Minister added that there was just as much capacity and integrity in the members of the Ministry to do the right thing as there was in the members of the late Government. These are comforting words, and only in the case of Cabinet failing to live up to them could there be any ground for ’ complaint. The practice of office-seeking goes far back into history, and it needs courage and resolution on the part of Ministers to resist the importunity of claimants for appointment to the State service on the ground that they have rendered service to a particular party. Testerday’s debate will have a salutary effect in showing the undesirability of yielding to pressure in this matter.