SECRECY OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE. Shall it be Maintained ?

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 272, 16 September 1905, Page 6

SECRECY OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE. Shall it be Maintained ?

TO break one's oath is considered by the courts, both in New Zealand and elsewhere, as a particularly wrong proceeding, and is punished accordingly. To break the trust reposed in one by one's country is a sin equally heinous. To defend any public servant who, sworn to secrecy on his admission to that service, shows a wilful disregard of his oath, is lax morality, and to condone any breach of the law in this connection is a bad precedent. * » * That civil servants should maintain inviolate the trust reposed in them is absolutely necessary for the proper carrying on of the work of the country, and any leakage of information from any branch of the sea-vice must be stopped in order to protect the public. What, for instance, would you think of a postal officer who, on receiving an important wire from you for transmission, gave the information away for use by some outside person ? You would say — particularly if you lost money by his action — that he was not a fit person to be trusted either with your private business or the business of the State. • • • The Income Tax Department has a knowledge of your income — for taxing purposes — but if an officer of that department disclosed your business affairs you wouldn't feel too good about it. You would probably feel that the sooner that officer got a job outside the Civil Service the safer for all concerned. There are temptations in the public service. There are serpents in the Eden. Politicians in search of information obtainable only by a breach of oath cannot indemnify their informants against loss of position. Neither can politicians be punished for abetting, unless the people decide that they don't want such politicians any longer.

However much sympathy the public may feel for individuals in the public service who have listened to the voice of the charmer, and given forth information that ought to have been treated as confidential, a bias in their favour would have a most detrimental effect on the service at large. If conduct of the kind ■was condoned in post-office officials, it would be a distinct permission to- the whole of the Civil Service to use any private information they might be able to obtain for their own use- or for the use of other people. It would be a most objectionable precedent. • • • The much-discussed voucher business is a timely warning to public officers to remember their oaths Whatever hardship may be entailed on individuals by the action of the authorities, it is certain that the disclosure by civil servants of business matters passing through their hands, and breaches of oath must be punished in order to guard against a repetition of painful incidents such as the "voucher mystery" has brought forth. Politics must not be carried into the departments of the State. They must be left on the street door-mat.