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5. Education to enable Closer Liaison between Officer Divisions * —Forestry education is needed in New Zealand not only for professional forest officers and for forest rangers, but also for all other officers, including officers engaged in ancillary professions and clerical duties, for it is a fundamental necessity in technical organizations to ensure that all officers have an understanding of the workings of the Department and also of the relationship among the various officer Divisions. Following the appointment of a number of University-trained foresters to the Professional Division in 1939, it became necessary •over the war period to transfer some of these men periodically to general duties. As officers of the Professional Division are subject to a series of salary increments less interrupted by barriers than are those of officers of other Divisions, there has been a tendency for misunderstandings and even jealousies to arise as a result of Universitytrained men being introduced into the organisation and, without a suitable background or adequate practical experience, given seniority over or charge of men of good practical •experience who, through adverse economic circumstances, have been unable to acquire systematized technical knowledge'on as full a scale as their more fortunate colleagues. This undesirable tendency is a very real threat to the esprit de corps of any organization, .and is seldom appreciated by those unversed in public administration and without •experience in the workings of a technical Department of State. 6. Democratic Opportunity for Promotion.—lt is a fundamental precept of staff organization that maximum efficiency can be attained only by making administrative positions open to officers of the Clerical as well as of the General and Professional Divisions. For such a system to operate successfully in the Forest Service it is essential that all members of the staff have a basic forestry education. Forest foremen and leading hands need it to fit them for appointment to officer grades of the General Division. Likewise .officers of ancillary professions and of the Clerical Division require it for advancement to administrative positions. General and Professional Division officers need, in addition, short courses in departmental administration to furnish them with a working knowledge of staff and accounting, stores, and other aspects of office practice. 7. Association of all Staff Members during Training.—lt is considered desirable that all members of the staff should be closely associated during the whole period of their forestry education and training. It has therefore been arranged that recruits for the professional ranks shall take their prerequisite B.Sc. degree on a part-time basis, thus allowing contacts with office staff during the University year, as well as field contacts during vacations. This plan has operated with success not only in improving the esprit de corps of the staff, but also in eliminating at an early stage quite a few of those who are unsuited temperamentally or otherwise for forestry work. A further development recently inaugurated requires that all recruits for professional ranking not possessing an appropriate rural or forest background should spend one year in the field before taking up their University studies. Carrying the policy of staff association to its logical conclusion the education of all ranks must be centralized, as far as practicable, within one institution, where the concurrent operation of post-graduate courses for Professional Division officers, of diploma courses for forest rangers, of vocational instruction for other staff categories, and of administrative courses for promising senior officers will both maintain contacts and improve the loyalty of the whole organization. In addition, the contacts made and the mutual understandings established between departmental officers and others attending thfe courses and living together will be maintained and be of general benefit not only to the Forest Service in the years to come, but to the profession as a whole. ... 8. Inadequacy of University Staff. —Reference has already been made to the higher standard of training required in the Service to meet future developments in forestry. To achieve the optimum results, adequate teaching staff is essential. In an undergraduate •School of Forestry the number of qualified instructors is, by reason of finance, in direct proportion to the number of students. When the two Schools of Forestry were operating

* As referred to here, these are Divisions of officers as set up by the Public Service Commissioner for all Departments of the New Zealand Public Service (exclusive of the New Zealand Railways and the Post and Telegraph Departments).

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