The New Zealand Times. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1913. THE CIVIL SERVICE AND “REFORM”
When the election was at its keenest, the “Reform’’ candidates always insisted that the Civil Service was “seething with discontent-’’ It was the consequence of “corruption” and some other . phantasms of the “Reforming” mind. In these matters, the “Reform” party was not taken seriously. The public regarded its electioneering gyrations very much as men regard children who have to go through courses of measles, whooping cough, scarlatina, teething, and other ailments of childhood. The unfortunate part of the story is that, by a quite unexpected desertion from the LiberalLabour alliance, the “Reformers” obtained power in the face of substantial majorities against them at the polls, as wo have shown many times in these columns. Then “Reform” had to take itself seriously, and the ' misfortune was thus deepened considerably. Among the vast programme of crude ideas, there was one which had been put into statutory shape, and that became the first point for practical work after the party got into power. Thus the Public Service Reform Act passed into law, thanks to the accidental majority behind the party in Parliament. This has been vaunted as the step taken to put a stop to the discontent with which the service was seething. The seething, be it understood, before the application of the remedy was purely imaginary. Now what is it? Ask the telegraph operators, ask the Public Trust officers, ask the lettercarriers, ask the police constables, ask the railway hands. We have shown at various times lately how these departments are feeling about the future because* of their dislike of the present. It will be said that these se'ethings were part of the discontent which gave such a handle to the “Reformers.” But it was nowhere so stated. On the contrary, “Reform” was very careful not to go one jot beyond the most general considerations. As for detailed cases, there was nothing of the kind in the whole of their campaign from beginning to the end. We must fall back on some other explanation for the reason why the discontent is articulate now where it was once inarticulate. That is a decided change certainly. But it is not the only change. There has been another and more important change. The constitutional basis of the service has been nade unconstitutional. So long as there was representative authority to bo appealed to, so long was there hope of remedy. Autocracy, on the other hand, not being amenable to appeal as well as open to reason, despair, it is not unnatural to conclude, has made men communicative. Under the old system there was a remedy, and an obvious one. Under the new, what is the remedy P Appeal to the autocracy of a Chief Commissioner and a .board—a triumvirate amenable to no power. Ministers can say nothing to them. can do nothing but watch in silence, broken by occasional _niurmur of hope for information, the mouths of members of the Legislature are shut by the cold heavy weight of the statute. The friends of men suffering from wrong or imagining they are so suffering have no access to the board room where the secrets are kept. Take the grievances which have found expression lately in our columns, of telegraphists, of Trust officers, of constables, of letter carriers and occasionally of railway men. They concern details of service and wages. In the matter of the former, the Parliament has no right to interfere whatever. In the latter, viz., wages, the Commissioner may raise salaries, but Parliament may refuse to appropriate. Thus the board is likely to plead Parliamentary power against claims for increased pay, while 'Parliament; is sure to declare that all power lies with the board. Is it not non-political P In this way, the service stands thrust into a circle most thoroughly vicious. Under such a system, no airing of grievances in Parliament will be of any avail, for the board may laugh at Parliament and be not one penny the worse therefor. Under the old system, a discussion in Parliament was a very important thing which no Minister could afford to neglect. Grievances that were well aired in the Souse had a knack of getting hold of the conviction that fresh air was very good for a grievance. We can not wonder therefore that men were silent about their grievances in the days when they had a good method open to them of airing them. Nor can we -be surprised, now that the system is changed to one that reduces Parliament to a cypher of the worst and most common-place order, that they are open-mouthed. After all, it only proves that the abandonment of democratic principle is inexpedient as well as unjustifiable. Responsible Ministers governing the service are responsible to Parliament, and Parliament is responsible to the constituencies. There you have the chain of responsibility complete. It matters nothing that they have in various countries departed from the principle. No number of blacks ever
made a white, though they have been known to palliate a grey colour occasionally. In Australia, the colour of the service was said to have been bad enough to justify the hoisting of tho black unconstitutional flag. But hero no such statement to that effect ever amounted to more than a thread bare pretence. Nevertheless, we no longer have a service control responsible to Parliament in the proper democratic way. Wo have established a bureaucracy because the party of “Reform” was fluked into office by the mistakes of the Labour party, and eventually, tho “ratting” of professed Liberals. We have thrown constitutional principle to the winds because of the accident of Mr Herdman having the only “Reform” Bill ready for immediate work at the moment the fluke was scored on the Government benches. No sooner is the change complete than the service realises that there is no remedy for its griefs. The true remedy, and the only remedy, has been spirited away in the twinkling of a statute. There is nothing in its place but a vicious circle. Nothing to console the disillusioned officers but a conviction that whatever may have been the state of the laws of tho Modes and Persians, their state is unalterable. The stroke of “Reform” has smitten'them hip and thigh. For the rest of their lives, they will have to limp as best they can at the command of irresponsibility. “Such is the consequence of ill-advised asperity,” the asperity which on one side was the chief feature of the election proceedings of 1911.
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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8354, 14 February 1913, Page 6
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1,092The New Zealand Times. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1913. THE CIVIL SERVICE AND “REFORM” New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8354, 14 February 1913, Page 6
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