THE PUBLIC SERVICE BILL

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2631, 13 October 1909, Page 4

THE PUBLIC SERVICE BILL

It is not at all surprising that Sir Joseph Ward displayed some impatience, not to say irritation, at tho action of Air. Herdman in speaking on the first reading of his Public Service Bill. The fact of tho matter is the Premier is likely to become annoyed any time that such a Bill is discussed, for its introduction implies a. censure on a system that has become dear to the heart of the Continuous Alinistrv. Mr. Herdman would place the. power of appointing and dismissing civil servants in the hands of a Commissioner, and would thus remove from Alinisters the power of exerting patronage in the way that has opened the door to many scandals in tho past. In the days of the Soddon regime, the Opposition time and again registered protests against the wicked waste that was going on in the civil service, blit although hundreds of temporary clerks were on the list, it was always claimed, with a great show of indignation, that not ono of them could be spared. Yet many a score l were simply putting in time, and drawing the State’s good money every week, simply because they or their friends had a “pull” with a Minister. Sir Joseph himself continued the old fiction that all was well in the service. Yet when the national financial stringency became so great that economies bad to be effected, ho discovered that no less a sum than £250,000 could be sawed annually without seriously impairing the efficiency of the public departments’ work. This admission provides abundant proof of the absolute truth of what the Opposition had been in-cach-ing for many years. /The “pull” system, which is the foundation upon which Tammany yvas built, had gripped bur civil service till it had become costly beyond all need, and at tho same timo a medium for political corruption. Sir Joseph, to save the finances of the country, has been compelled to weed out tho inefficients and wasters, but unless the system is altered it is only a question of time when the former evils will return. So long as Alinisters are chiefly party politicians, having as their first instinct the preservation of their party, so long will they > use every possible opportunity to exert patronage, and thus retain tho support of the rank and file of Al.’sl*. For this reason it is wrong in principle, and disastrous in practice, to give to tho Minister the autocratic power which lio possesses over the servants in his department, and Air Herdman proposes, therefore, to adopt the* system that has been found successsful elsewhere, and place the power of making public appointments quite beyond tho possibility of

governmental interference. It is this proposal that meets with Sir Joseph's disapproval, and in consequence we can only assume that the Premier’s apparent conversion in regard to the reform of the Public Service is only skin-deep. When the devil was sick the devd a saint would be; When the devil was well the devil no

saint was he. In hard times Sir Joseph straightened up the service, but when opportunity offers he will use it in tho future just as improperly as his predecessors have done for the purposes of party advancement. That is unless there is a majority of our representatives in Wellington prepared to forego the opportunities to give their friends a helping hand into the civil service. Of this we have grave doubts, and m all probability Mr. lierdman’s Bill will merely provide the opportunity for an ineffective protest against a system that leads to the impairment of our civil service and the degradation of public life.