The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1888. CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2844, 10 March 1888, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1888. CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

Atklegkam in our last issue- related that, a Commission, consisting of several beads of department, is now engaged in re-classifying the clerks in the big building, and one Wonders what on earth they are doing this for. Everybody knows that this shuffling of the Civil Service pack does noi really, mean either retrenchment or reform, It.is a-sort.;of solemn farce, periodically played' by Ministers, make believe which ma-y .deceive the country but cannot possibly mislead the House. We will illustrate the: real evil of the Civil Service system by describing how the simplest possible business operation, the receipt and reply of a letter, is managed. Say an inoffensive and well meaning settlerlet us call him Muggins-writes a letter to a Government department and we follow that letter to it's destination in Wellington, where it is put up in a special bag and consigned to a certain despatch room in the big buildings. There the letter is sorted out and forwarded to its proper office by a messenger and opened by a record clerk. The next process consists in attaching an official stamp to the document, a sort of baptism which prepares it for all it has to go through subsequently. When duly stamped, an abstract is prepared of its contents and attached to the missive. Then the abstract is solemnly entered in one of the myriad ledgers of the big building, and receives an additional mark of grace in the shape of a number, For all time Muggins and his grievance now become a State record; but before any further step can be taken in the subject matter of the epistle, the records of the colony have to be searched to discover if Muggins has ever before communicated with the department, and if so, why so. No step can be taken in official correspondence without a solemn reierence to precedent. At this stage a precedent of some kind must he established, and a delay, possibly of hours, sometimes of days, and occasionally of weeks, occurs to develop this essential feature of reference. Precedent is not the Juggernaut Of the Civil Service, but it is one of 'theni. Muggins' letter now begins to.tmvela, little more rapidly, it passes on | from the record clerk to the chief clerk, who examines it carefully, and if he' feels tliat the exigencies of the Civil Service require further information causes some further enquiry to be made. At this period of its existence, the letter may possibly -travel backward for a few.days, but in due time it is to the fore again, sbwly but surely, and the chief clerk sends it on to the UnderSecretary. When this high official has ascertained the exact nature of Muggins' complaint, he possibly at a convenient opportunity, lays it before he Minister. When an event of this, kind occurs, its exact time is usually shrouded in mystery. It is, however, understood that. eventually Muggins' 'etter does reach the Minister, but tlie period it takes to reach this alti- ' .tudeis supposed to be. incalculable. When at last the Ministerial 'eye rests upon Mugeins' epistle, it is, perhaps, discovered tliat some technical point is involved, upon which the big building is in utter darkness, If this be so, Muggins' Igttpr meandersback by slow and easy stages ii :recprd office, and from thence is referred to some, practical expert up country for i

information. The up-country official i duly gives the reijiiirtd information, and the letter again passes from the record clerk to the chief clerk, and from the- chief clerk td the UnderSecretary, backwards and forwards, according to the Civil Service regulations, which determine not how long an epiatle must revolve in space before it is replied to, but that it must rovolve. At last finality is reached, and the record clerk is in a position to. send a reply to the communication.' Then, possibly, the clerk may sigh : - " It is no use my answering this letter now. Poor Muggins died last year 'I know him well Horatio,' and read of his demise in the Waibakapa Daily a few months after he wrote this, letter." Now may we ask how is it possible to reform the Civil Service without changing the system which produces such astounding results and which works in such a circumlocutory maze. What we,have said about the fate, of a letter sent to the Government buildings may sound like a rigmarole and may even remind one of the ( pathetic nursery rhyme:— The rope began to hang the butcher, The butoher began to. kill the ox, The ox began to drink the water, ' The water began to quench tke fire, The lire began to burn the stick, The stick began to beat the. dog, ' The. dog began to bite the pig, The pig began to get over the bridge. ■ i It takes a lot to put a pig over the. bridge in the above, thrilling narrativo, but what is it to the bfidge.in the : big building: that " pons asinorum,"' which is still harder to pass; What is the use of putting- new labels on Civil Servants, to : take' one perhaps from Class 19, and put him" in Class; 20, and remove another from Class 20 into Class 19. A few years ago, a similar commission "went through the big building, and formulated material for a voluminous report. The service was then reformed on paper, but virtually it remained unchanged. There is still an army of over-worked and under-paid clerks, which is ceaselessly engaged in making work for one another by endless and frivolous repetitions and duplications The present Commission is a sham, and a make-believe. No real reform can be secured wlme the hydra-headed monster "circumlocution" is paramount in the big buildings.