CONTROLLING BUREAUCRACY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 299, 30 September 1939, Page 4

CONTROLLING BUREAUCRACY.

Au assembly of twenty archangels could not do the work that a British Cabinet lightly undertook, said Mr Ramsay Muir at a luncheon of the'Birmingham Rotary Club, when .lie attacked the “bureaucratic system which in Britain passed under the name of democracy. ’’ “If the J.R.A. succeeded in blowing up the House of Commons and the House of Lords, with all the members of the Cabinet present, tomorrow the show of government would go on pretty well for quite a. considerable time,” lie said. “The permanent officials attached to the various Government Departments find n now Minister who comes to take control of them a child in their hands—a man who has made a name, in the country or perhaps in Parliament by a gift of the gab. When he comes into his department to take charge of affairs lie is either a self-important ass qr a man of quite amazing power if he does not fall under the control of his permanent officials.” Mr Muir, pointing out that control was necessary over a bureaucratic system, said that the municipalities had found a way of doing it- bv the introduction of a committee system. “We want committees to make use of the bnmenso amount of ability and special knowledge that there is in Parliament, composed of men who have gone there in the hope of rendering some service to their country,” he said.