The Daily News. MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1912. THREE COMMISSIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 289, 3 June 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1912. THREE COMMISSIONS.

These are the days of ''Why," the age of. enquiry. Obvious defects in administration, in the social order, and in the public service lead to complaint. An immense amount of discussion, on every conceivable point, on these matters takes place among the public and is echoed in the public prints. In the matter of the cost of living, for instance, the papers, with the aid of the public, expert and experienced, have minutely stated the reasons for the high price of commodities, which may be set down succinctly—the large and false price of land, particularly town, and suburban, the drift from the land to the cities, the exceeding unrest among the secondary workers, the adoption of a more luxurious standard of living, trade monopolies, the increase of cost of distribution, the liimtation of output, the rise in wages, and the spoon-feeding of communities and individuals. When experts have discussed matters like these in all their bearings, when the public knows why goods are dear, then is th« moment for an inexpert Royal Commission to discover what the public knows, at great expense. A Royal Commission is to sit, and it will, of course, present a long Teport to Parliament. Parliament has, perhaps, all the available information necessary to decide that the price of necessities is high- When the Commiision has reported that the suspicions of the public have been confirmed, what then? Can a Royal Commission mak« any recommendation that will have th« effect of redlucing prices to the publiet That is the only useful aim of the Commission. The same problem in regard to the cost of living has faced other countries and there are available the conclusions of the greatest economists of older lands to guide New Zealand. Although a Royal Commission is to git in New Zealand there is no guarantee that it will have any practical use whatever. In the case of the Commission to enquire into the civil service, the Government has in its possession at this moment, or should have, every scrap of information that is necessary for a complete overhauling of the service and bringing it right up-to-date. The Government knows now what is wrong with the service—if there is anything wrong at all—and if it contemplates a new order of things after the rising of the Commission there is no reason why the new order of things should not be begun now. If the service is not giving value for tlie people's money, why wait for redress? If the civil servants who are useless to the State are to be weeded out of the service ultimately, it would pay the State better to get rid of them now, and to I award them a year's salary than I prove the obvious at great expense by the setting up of a Commission. It is the constant boast of a large number of people that the New Zealand educational

system is very fine. Its weaknesses are perfectly well known. They have been discussed with painful reiteration. The chief reasons for failure are the cramming of a plethora of useless subjects into all children who attend school, the pov-r;-ty of a large proportion of schools, 'ie advantages that are so unjustly dis- : ibuted between large schools and small liools, the paucity of teachers, the poor capacity of a proportion of the teachers, and the wretchedness of many school buildings. It is known without further enquiry that these conditions exist. The State does not propose to remedy known defects. It proposes to tpend a large sum of money—which should be spent on children—in proving that these defects exist. Having discovered the apparent, redress is no nearer at hand, for redress means money. The facts that are to be disclosed by three bunches of heavily-paid commissioners will be the facts that are alreadypublic property. The sittings of commissions are not deeds, and the findings of commissions are not necessarily promise of reforms. Innumerable reams of evidence (reminiscent of the evidence of the Land Commission, which effected no useful purpose of any kind) will be taken down and published. The commissioners will be satisfied they have done great public service. There is, however, no evidence that any New Zealand Royal Commission has effected feform, and they have generally been excuses for delay in actual deeds.