The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1922. THE CHIEF NECESSITY.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1922, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1922. THE CHIEF NECESSITY.

That the publication of the Geddes economy report caused widespread interest at Home may be understood on perusal of the lengthy summaries given by the English papers to hand by the recent mail. It is a tremendous indictment of the extravagant methods of management that have been allowed to develop at Home under stress of war conditions. The report and the recommendations provide a lesson for us in New Zealand, where the same extravagant, conditions and inefficient control obtain. In England, the Government asked the departments to effect economies of at least £113,000,000 a year; they reported, after investigation, they could save no more than £75,000,000. The Government then called in a committee of foremost business men. leaders of industry and trade, gave them full powers to investigate, and, after six months’ continuous work, no member missing a single sitting, they brought down recommendations involving a saving of a further £86,000,000. or £161,000,000 altogether. In New Zealand, it will be remembered, the Government also called upon departmental heads to reduce expenses, and as a result Mr. Massey announced economies of £5,000,000, not to be effected immediately, but some time in the dim and distant, future. It has consistently been urged by leaders of trade and commerce and the Press that New Zealand should follow England’s example and call in a committee of leading business men to report upon the whole of our administrative activities with a view to reducing costs and securing greater efficiency. It is really the only way to obtain the desired results. Departmental men, however conscientious, cannot by their very training and surroundings do justice to the task, whilst, no Minister would have the time, even if he had the training and experience. to make a success of the work. The position was logically stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer:—“l was perfectly convinced, and I am sure those who have read the report and seen how elaborate it is, are also convinced that no Minister who .was perforating his other functions could by any chance give the time under modern conditions which was necessary for this task. The Commission’s findings were described by The Times as monumental. In the -fighting services, the report stated, there is overlapping and duplication, and coordination will itself save a large sum. Whole departments, including those of overseas trade, mines and transport, are marked for the scrap-heap, and others are indicated for further special investigations which may swell the sum of economies. As to the pay of civil servants, the committee makes no recommendations, but it points out that in some State departments employees work a shorter day than obtains in outside employment, and it refers this whole subject back for further consideration. A saving of £1,785,000 is indicated by; refusing to admit children below six years of age to State schools, an economy which might, he instituted in New Zealand actual benefit to child-life. Women police patrols are condemned as being of negligible value and an unnecessary extravagance. The committee ’s report concludes: ‘ln our opinion the time has come when the Government must say to the departments how much money they can have, and look to them to frame their proposals accordingly.” This is advice that may profitably be followed in New Zealand. ‘The departments, as we have alwavs contended, should be rationed, and not. as now, have carte blanche in the expenditure of public money. Taxation here as in England, must be reduced if trade and industry are to revive. At Home the proposed savings represent 4s in the income tax at its present yield ; in New Zealand a reduction of six or seven millions in public expenditure would, in ordinary times, make possible a decrease of one-third in the income tax. This should be the aim of the Government., which must go further than it proposes in order to meet the necessities of the country. The following, taken from the London Times, has almost a direct application to our own Government: —•

“What the Government have utterly failed to recognise ia that the nation has set its heart on the adoption ot the Geddes economies or their equivalent. and that polities! ruin awaits those who prevent the realisation of its new-horn hope. Here at last is a Hear way of escape from a terrible situation. The public has read

through the Geddes report with an avidity never before shown in the history of Government publications, and it has judged the recommendations to be wholly sincere and generally sound. The report is the taxpayer’s Magna Carta. He clings to it and will not barter it for all the vague promises which may be made by his adversaries in Downing Street and Whitehall. Ministers have only the smallest -com preh erosion of the devastating effect which has been made upon public opinion by the report. If the nation is thankful for the economies actually recommended, it is etill more in the debt of the Committee for their exposure of the spendthrift methode of the new bureaucracy. The Committee have laid bare with a pitiless hand the whole sorry structure of waste and improvidence which the Coalition system has embedded in the very life of the nation. There are things in the report which -the nation will never forget or forgive. It is idle for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to excuse the failure of the Government to discharge their primary function by descanting upon the stability and integrity of our financial system as one of the greatest factors in maintaining the civilisation of Europe. Nothing has contributed more to the weakening of our old financial stability than the extravagant expenditure of this most wasteful of all 1 Governments. The first need of stable finance -in present circumstances is ruthless retrenchment, and the Government which fails to obey the plain dictates •of the nation in this critical hour is surely doomed.”