MR COATES PRAISED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 50, 10 December 1935, Page 5

MR COATES PRAISED

DR. BELSHAW’S TRIBUTE. TERM AS ADVISER ENDED. THE “BRAIN TRUST.” ' - \ (Per Press Association). AUCKLAND, December 9. A tribute of high praise was given to the former Minister for Finance (the Rh. Hon. J. <Gr. Coates) by Professor H. Belshaw, of Auckland University College, in an interview on the termination of his year’s appointment as advisory economist to the Minister. “I should like to pay a personal tribute to Mr Coates, with whom I have been most intimately associated during the last year, and in this I know that I am only echoing the sentiments of those departmental officers who have been under Mr Coates’ direction,” said Professor Belshaw. “They have for him the strongest admiration and personal loyalty. There is.no statesman who has done more for New Zealand, faced greater difficulties, or served his country with greater vision and resolution, or with less thought of self. When the history of the last few years is viewed in retrospect Mr Coates’ name will stand high among the great men of the Dominion.” Questioned about the so - called “brains trust,” Professor Belshaw said there could be nothing more untrue than the superstition held in some quarters that it “ran the country.” Tlie economists attached to the Government simply gave their particular and training in the service of the Government in the same way as did any departmental officer. Their function was to prepare information for the Minister or examine the economic aspects of problems under discussion. A decision on policy was made, not on* the opinions, of the economists, but after weighing all the information and the opinions of departmental heads or outside parties as well. Thus an economist could give useful service in the same way as any other officer. “I should like to say, also, how fortunate New Zealand is in the calibre of its civil service, especially the senior officers,” Professor Belshaw added. “During the last few years I have met many executives in business, and have come to know many senior departmental officers. Any comparison is not unfavourable to , the civil servant, especially when it is remembered that the salaries paid in the civil service are substantially lower than those paid for less .responsible positions In private enterprise. ... “The year’s experience has been or inestimable value to me. Not only has it given me a appreciation of the problems facing New Zealand, but also it has enabled me to realise more fully the administrative and political difficulties confronting those who attempt a solution. A remedy which may be thoroughly sound fronv an economic point of view may be impracticable because of the problems of the administration. It may be incapable of application because its' implications cannot be made entirely clear to tho public, who are the ultimate judges, or. because the public too strongly opposes the immediate effects, and is too impatient to await its final working out.” • .. Professor Belshaw, who is Professor of Economics and Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at Auckland University College, will leave shortly for the United States and Britain on his sabbatical year’s leave. He has been awarded a fellowship by the Rockefeller Foundation, and proposes to pursue investigations into ’ agricultural economics at Cornell, Harvard, and Washington. This‘is in continuance of his research at Cambridge University some years ago, and of various investigations in New Zealand during the last few years.