THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1912. CIVIL SERVICE CLASSIFICATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10585, 16 March 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1912. CIVIL SERVICE CLASSIFICATION.

The dying Government, forcod into a recognition of the tact that the Civil Service is in a state of seething discontent, and that the present system of political appointments is impairing its efficiency, and degrading all who are connected with it, is trying the experiment of remedying the position by a system of classification which will make confusion the worse confounded. Classification would be right and proper if it were preceded by a severance of the Departmental sheep from the political goats. But ; to attempt a classification which will be .satisfactory to the Dominion, and to tlie Service under existing conditions is to strive for the impossible. Already complaints are pouring in from ail sides at the glaring anomalies which are resulting from the classification proposals of the Board, and the end of it all will be that nobody will be satisfied, jf the Government were honest to itself and the country, it would admit the necessity for the establishment of a Civil Service Board on the lines indicated by Mr A. L. Herdinan. Tin's is the onlyrational method of dealing with the problem, and of eliminating the political influence which is destroying the efficiency of the Service. The Government, by instituting a system of classification, admits that the process adopted in the past is unsatisfactory. .It

has yet to bo demonstrated, however, that a hard and fast system of classification will he an improvement noon the existing'system. The result of the classification will ho that many or the best men in the Service will he kept in inferior positions because there i are so many (political officials who have been thrust into the higher offices from time to time. The Classification Act is careful to provide that the salary of no officer shall he reduced, so that it is impossible to set rid of those who have gained positions by back-stair influence. The probabilities are that when the classification scheme is completed the condition of the Service will be uorso than before it was attempted. Automatic promotion offers no inducement to members of the service to become efficient. It has the effect of lowering rather than of raising the standard of efficiency. If the Service were controlled by a board of exiperts, independent entirely of politics, there would be some hope that it would give a*" reason able return for it-he immense sum of money which is expended upon it.