PUBLIC WORKS POLICY

Hokitika Guardian, 9 April 1920, Page 3

PUBLIC WORKS POLICY

(Christchurch Press)

The people of Auckland have •* e?'i looking forward eagerly to .lie first public speech of the Hon. J. G. Coates, the new Minister of Public Works. T'ie occasion came on Thursday ,ast in connexion with the opening of another section of the Auckland Main Trunk Railway. Those who expected -that Mr Coates would lay down any new principle of action for his Department u>u i t have been disappointed, We do not think Mr Coates could faitfy be asked to signalise his appearance as head of the Department with any very striking "pronouncement. He must first familiarise himself with the working of the Department, and this he intends to do. He proposed, he .said, “quietly and calmly to investigate the machine he • hind the Minister, for obviously nothing could be achieved unless that machine was efficient.” Mr Chates does not appear to have mado quite clea. what ho meant by “the machine be hind the Minister—whether, that is tn say, he merely meant the machinery of the Department itself. The Department itself may he as efficient i.s Departments usually are, hut the problem at which “The Press” has beenhammering for years, and which many of pur contemporaries are at last discussing is not concerned with tile internal arrangements of the Department. The trouble is elsewhere. It is the lock of correspondence between developmental programmes and national requirements. Wlia-ti f,he Department does, it does well enough. Its hriclg" S do not collapse; its railways arp well and tr.uly laid. But what is all wro i.; is the system that produces the. actual list of works that the Department rot s.t carry out-. The Department does not nlan out the annual programme. That is done nominally by Parliament, liltreally by the Government, which does the .best it can to satisfy the clamour of the districts. It is this system that requires alteration. Mr Coates did net indicate that it will ho altered. Indeed, he soems to have suggested that the4ime is still to come when a rati uni allocation of the development funds will he made. Referring to the progress of the North Auckland lino, he said : ‘.’Patience I ask you still to use, hut not too much; for the more you call out, the more you will he heard.” Perhaps a full report, of the Minister’s speech may modify the impression created. hut that impression that ,the Public Works development may cn-

tinue to be decided by a competition o f clamour, such as lias, in the 7:llst, led to enormous material nnd moral loss.