PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 16, 11 September 1912, Page 7

PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.

o The Civil Service Commission, in its report, states: —When we come to the i higher positions in the service, we think there should he again an agelimit. We do not think that a man, no matter what his ability may be, should be put into the position of head of a department late in life. The

retiring-age has been fixed, and we think rightly fixed, at sixty-five. If a man is put in as head of a department at sixty-two or sixty-three years of age, as some arc, he has only a very short period of service ahead of him, and while he may see a lot of work to be done to put his department on proper lines, in nine eases out of ten, no matter what his ability may be, he will not take the trouble to reorganise, things with such a short period of service ahead of him; whereas, if a man had a long period of service ahead, if he were a good man he would not mind what trouble he went to, and would adopt plans for the betterment of his department, when he saw that he would have an opportunity of remaining in control to carry them out. We think that fifty-five should be fixed as a limit for a man taking the position of head of a department, and it would be far better if he got the position when ten years younger. If he did not get the position before reaching the age of fifty-five, then he would have to do without it. When the position of head of a department becomes vacant, no one over fifty-five years of age should bo eligible for it. This would mean that a man on getting the responsibility of head of a. department would feel that he had at least ten years’ active service ahead of him, and we feel quite satisfied that under these circumstances he would be much more likely to give the State the best service of which he was capable than he would if he knew he was to hold his position for only a comparatively short period. Besides this, the energies of even the most capable men, as a rule, begin to wane after sixty, and the State should not wait until a man’s best years have gone by before making use of his talents in the higher positions of the service.