CIVIL SERVICE BOARDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 123, 15 November 1911, Page 4

CIVIL SERVICE BOARDS.

'lhe member for Taranaki supports liis Party's plank to set up a civil service board and- the removal of ministerial patronage. Civil service boards may work out satisfactorily uid tliey mav not. The railway commissioners system was certainly far from a success. The people can g'et rid of the or any meniher of it, but they have little or 110 control over commissioners, who might prove as autocratic as the, most autocratic minister. Ministerial patronage, we are convinced, is not a very real quantity in these days of classification

and appeal boa>rds. No service in the world is really more independent of politicians than the public service of this country. In regard to the Railway Appeal Board we believe a change is necessary and that the Minister should not have the power of veto over any decision arrived at. But as the board is at present constituted that veto should, in the interests of the country, be retained. We would alter the constitution in the direction of giving the men and the department equal representation, with a magistrate or Supreme Court Judge as chairman, decisions to be final and not subject to any veto. The men have the thing in their own hands, and we believe if they made representations in the direction indicated the alteration would bo granted. Mr. Obey touched on a number of minor matters, for the most part finding fault with the Government and hawing nothing but praise for the Opposition, but his arguments and statements carried little or no conviction The speech, as a whole, must have proved very disappointing to even his iiiohl, ardent supporters, who have to confess Hint Mr. Okey has not benc'lited or learned much as a result of his live years' ap prenticeship to politics. It is really putting too big a strain on the indulgence and charity of electors to expect them to continue to put up with such an indifferent form of representation, especially now that the district has arrived at the turning point in its career, when the guiding hand of a Parliamentary representative, capable, broad-minded, and farseeing, able to hold his own with the country's most alert minds and in sympathy with the progressive spirit <of the time, has become an imperative necessity.