MOMENTOUS CHANGES?

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 358, 20 October 1932, Page 4

MOMENTOUS CHANGES?

The brief message which we publish this morning predicting the retirement on superannuation of the chief engineer of the , Public Works Department and the present Director of Education, is significant. Neither of these officers has yet reached the retiring age and it may therefore be assumed that their retirement will presage reorganisation in the services which they represent. Both the Public ! Works Department and the EduI cation Department, as two of the largest State spending depart-

j ments, came in for a large share ' J of attention from the National Expenditure Commission and it is probable that any reorganisation carried out will be along the lines of the recommendations made by the commission. In both cases,„ drastic economies involving a rigid curtailment of the activities of the two departments was suggested. The recommendations with regard to the Public Works Department should also be taken in conjunc- ' tion with the fact that Cabinet

is admittedly considering a reorganisation of the present system of transport control along lines which would place the present operations of the Public Works Department in this direction, under other jurisdiction. It was recommended by the commission that the Public Works Department should, in effect, be reduced to a staff of consulting and supervising engineers, that constructional work should be carried out largely on a relief basis and that the present loan raising powers ernployed for public works should be severely restricted. The commission's i recommendations with regard ; ^ the Education Department i supported a system of central- ; 'secl control as opposed to the | present system of control by j education boards under the; presiding authority of the department. All of these changes are xceptionally wide in effect anc u is probable that momentous eevelopments may follow the fu. - ^ment of the prediction in today's message.