THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 455, 7 March 1919, Page 2

THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

(To the Editor) Sir,—Our Public Service, with its many imperfections (especially dominant in the railway and postal services) can be larjrely traced to party government. Cabinet Ministers holding these portfolios have been so overworked or are so incompetent that the General Managers (or servants) have become the real rulers, and from one end of New Zealand to the other the general public are realising that they are [only a second consideration, and that these services really exist for the • servants in office. i If one doubts this statement and ; fact, let any local body or individual | ask for facilities from these " lords of creation," and when they find what they are up against any doubt on the matter will soon disappear. Take our suburban train service. TTnder pretext of the war, we have been consistently and persistently robbed of a decent suburban service. Workers have had to crowd into unhealthy City houses, awaiting some death-dealing epidemic, whilst i Government " snail ways " existed j. under a management which if applied to a private concern would speedily wreck any enterprise. In the Postal Department, Manurewa (though distant but 15 miles from the Oity) finds its last mail to Auckland closing at 1 p.m. The community here has had its Postal business conducted in most unsuitable private rooms, whilst, for many years, the Department has held the finect section in Manurewa (given to the Government for a post office), and the public has been fooled by the placing of a miserable sum on the Estimates carried over from year to year. Now, when pressure is brought to bear on the Department, they would dump down in our midst a backblocks wooden building, with the orthodox picket fence that nobody wants. The local authority has, however, practically been instructed to tell the Department not to erect any building at a if they cannot give a better one. This party machine and this autocratic rule of the servants are no good to a young and lising democratic country. The absence or change of Cabinet Ministers that so frequently occurs in New Zealand politics have so completely put the servants in charge of the machine that they have come to think and believe that the machine belongs to them and not to the people, i What ie the remedy ? Instead of having incompetent Ministers pitched [ into office by half the people's representatives, let us have an Elective ! Executive from the fall Parliament elected on a preferential vote- This should certainly give us better men. But without question some important reform is called for that will tend for greater efficiency in our Public Service. Yours, etc., ENOS S. PEGLER. Manrewa.