THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1912. GOVERNMENT BY COMMISSION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10646, 30 May 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1912. GOVERNMENT BY COMMISSION.

I The "Age" has commented adversely ! on several occasions upon the disposition of Liberal Ministers to .shunt their legislative responsibilities upon I Royal Commissions. A more unsatisfactory method of framing legislation 1 could' not possibly .be conceived. The Ministers of the Crown aro paid salaries ranging from £IOOO to £I7OO per year. The heads of Departments, who are .supposed to ;be possessed of export knowledge, are in receipt of anything up to £looo'a year apiece. Eighty members'of Parliament receive in the aggregate £24,000 a year to frame the legislation required ifor the country. And yet it is thought necessary to set up ißoyal Uomnnisisions, at a further cost of thousands of pounds, to do the work which' Ministers, and head's of "Departments, and.members of Parliament are paid to do. The country is surely overwhelmed with "n----diffie-rence wih'en it permits snob a state of /things to exist. The independent section of the Press of the Dominion ba's condemned the Commission business in unqualified terms, and even some of the Government organs have ibeen .moved to protest. The Dunedin Star, the editor of which, strangely enough, has been .made Chairman of one of [ho .Royal Commis'sions, had ithe (following in its issue of Monday:—"The Mackenzie Government have appointed three Royal Commissions—if they have done nothing eke. Spea'king 'generally, we are not .muoh in love with the Royal Coin--mission method of investigating political problems; indeed, we said <?o more tham once when Sir Joseph i W*,-trd wa<v in power. -Royal Commissions 'havo done great work in v'-iues past; th.ey have .forreled out nbu-es. and .secured information which otherwise nuight have ibeen very d (lieult to cb-tajn : n.nd in some instances their researches and recommendations Have led k) important parliamentary action. But, as ever, 'our little systems h:.ve their day—they havo their Jay and cease to be'—and we are of opinion that the system of Royal Commissions. in New Zealand at -least, hiiH. just

about outlived its usefulness, Lad its' day. There is a prevalent <usp"cion that it lias came'to be regarded as'a Convenient nieaiis of shelving questions which really ouglit to be leu'led by the Ministry df the day. Occasionally, of late years, this susp'co/! Ims certainly ibeen justified iby events for, though valuable evidence has often been taken, .the /reports (usnna'iy of the 'majority' and 'minority' oidor) have almost invariably reflected the individual prepossessions of the Commissioners. An experienced public servant, not cynically disposed, onocremavked to us: 'INO man's view? were ever changed by the evidence given before a Royal Commission.' An exaggerative paying, perhaps, but rot without ;a substratum of truth. Th« shrewdest, and most searclr'ng JEiigiish critic of the Victorian >ra vi-ed to twit his countrymen on whar lie termed their'weakness for* the 'grand r ame without the grand iloiig. We are afraid that .Royal Com in these days, are an illustration of that pungent criticism. Moreover, to pass from the general to the special, we feel no enthusiasm about the Commissions which the Mackenzie Government have just appointed. In this case it is not so ■much a ninUcr tf shirking or postponing difficulties as of making a .show '.of dedling with them in a hurry. In no instance wotfld it be possible to investigate and. report uipon ail it/he issues involved in the big references—the Civil Service; the whole working df primary, technical and secondary education; and the cost of living—within the time allowed, even assuming that the Commissions* are necessary."