The Daily News. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1912. LEADER THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 165, 29 November 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1912. LEADER THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.

The Public Service Commission is, of course, more or less of an experiment, and the appointment of the Commissioner has been awaited with some degree of interest by the public generally. The names of the three Commissioners have now been announced, and the Government appears to have made an excellent selection. Mr. Donald Robertson, the Chief Commissioner, has been in the postal service oi the Dominion for almost forty years, and has risen from the lowest rung of the ladder to the highest position in the • Department; and his services as a Post and Telegraph Administrator have been recognised by the bestowal on him of the Imperial Service Order, an lioaor which is only bestowed upon public servants of proved integrity and high administrative capacity. He is a man of modern methods and immense enthusiasm, and is regarded as one of the most capable officers in the public service of New Zealand. Mr. A. D. Thomson is a New Zealander by birth, and his whole career has been associated with the Justice Department, he having worked his way up from clerk of the court at Feilding to the position of Stipendiary Magistrate. He is, of course, a barrister at law, and his qualifications are such as eminently fit him for the position to which he has been appointed. Mr. E. Triggs, the new Commissioner, has been appointed mainly with an eye to the requirements of the Railway Department. Although he is now attached to the Postal Department of the Commonwealth Government, lie has had,

a wide experience of railway matters, both in New Zealand and Australia, and his departmental administration has won the warmest eulogies for thoroughness and modernity wherever he has been employed. The Commissioners, under the Act, are appointed for a term of seven years, and they are vested with wide powers of administrative control where the public service is concerned. Their path will be by no means a rosy one, for it is matter of common knowledge that there are shortcomings and abuses in the service that call urgently for immediate remedy., They will, however, have behind them not only the full confidence of Parliament, outside party considerations, but also the force of a strong public sentiment. So far as can be judged at the moment, the appointments are in every way admirable, and it now simply remains for the Commissioners to "make good."