WHAT THE PAPERS SAYs.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 237, 7 October 1933, Page 8

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY s.

POINTS FROM THE PRESS,

NEW ZEALAND'S "FORGOTTEN MAN."

All sorts of problems have been raised, and pleas for relief made, in the debate on the Address-in-Reply in the House of Representatives. A notable omission, however, is the plight of the taxpayer. He is the most oppressed and depressed individual in the country, but, while there are calls for subsidies and grants and relief for other classes, there is no talk of relief for him. The taxpayer is New Zealand's "forgotten man." That is the more surprising in a Chamber that traditionally is the guardian of the public purse. Three centuries ago the Crown's levy of ship money finally cost King Charles his head. Parliament went to war rather than surrender its prerogative of financial control. Yet ship money was a small matter compared with the heapedup income taxes of to-day, or the sales tax, or the wages tax and levy. The modern Parliament is more concerned with spending than with conserving the country's resources. It is true that j the Labour party's no-confklence motion makes formal reference to the revision and ultimate repeal of "increased and inequitable taxation, including sales and unemployment taxes." In supporting the motion, however, Mr. Holland does not appear to have mentioned this item. Probably it was slipped in as a make-weight, as it is not consistent with most of the other items, which call for increased expenditure, and therefore heavier calls on the taxpayer. Instead of spending time on discussing grandiose schemes for helping this class or vague remedies for curing that social ill—all of them involving increased expenditure—Parliament should turn its main attention to taxation. New Zealand's national income, has been almost halved, but the State is appropriating as much as ever it did, and far more in proportion. Such a condition of affairs is unhealthy and reacts throughout the body politic. By taking some of the weight off the bowed shoulders of the taxpayers, who are all the people, Parliament would make its most logical and most effective contribution toward recovery. —Wellington " Dominion."

A REVISING CHAMBER. If Cabinet is really considering the adoption of the election system of the Legislative Council lately adopted in New South Wales, the best advice we can give it is "Punch's" advice to those about to marry. The Australian reform was frankly a compromise, adopted partly to meet the objections of those who disliked the direct elective system and partly to provide a ready and inexpensive method of election. But it is quite illogical. If any system of election by Parliament is desirable it should be an election by members of the House of Representatives only, because they are the direct representatives of the people and they should be able to give expression to the popular will. But if such a system were adopted the powers of the Legislative Council would have to be reduced to work of revision [only. No indirectly elected Council should bo given the power to initiate legislation or to amend it in principle. There is a great deal to be said for the creation of a purely revising Chamber, consisting of men who are experts in their own subjects, with perhaps two legal members and two trained economists acting in an advisory capacity. Theoretically, the House of Representa-

tives' should he competent to initiate and discuss all legislation, and tlie Legislative Council is really superfluous. When tlie Council does function effectively as often as not its work is to prevent the passage of proposals approved by the Lower House but objectionable, for one reason or another, to tlie Government, and it seems to

us to be an extremely expensive machine for such purposes. A revising Chamber would he less expensive and far more effective, and we commend the idea to tlie Government. If the Council is to be elected, however, it would he difficult to devise better machinery than that already provided in the existing legislation, and as the measure can he brought into operation by the simple issue of a proclamation there scerns'to he no valid reason why Parliament should be asked to consider an alternative scheme. —" Christchurch Times."

THE PUBLIC SERVICE. In a speech in the Legislative Council on Tuesday, Mr. Snodgrass voiced a dissatisfaction, which must be fairly general, with the existing organisation of the New Zealand Public Service. It must bo admitted that some of his criticisms were unfair and some 06 his statements inaccurate. It is not true, for instance, that promotion by seniority is the rule," as Mr. Snodgrass suggests it is; nor is it fair to blame the Public Service exclusively for the tendency towards centralisation in government. Mr. Snodgrass would have been on surer ground had he been content to call attention to the neglected passages in the report of the National Expenditure Commission dealing with the Public Service and to emphasise the existing anomalies in the organisation of the Public Service. The present method of recruitment seems particularly in need of overhaul. In the past entry to the Public Service has been mainly through the junior public service examination, taken in the third or fourth year of secondary school work. Lately, however, the applications have been far in excess of the vacancies; and it has therefore been decided to make the matriculation examination the minimum educational requirement. There are many objections _to _ this _ arrangement. The matriculation examination is not competitive and cannot properly be made a basis for selective choice. Its primary purpose is to discover what secondary school pupils are ready to begin university work; and no one will argue that a test of fitness to take a university course is also a test 01 fitness to enter the Public Service. Moreover, most teachers will be sorry to see an increase in the already undesirable amount of importance lit ached to the matriculation examination. But

whatever to.«t is applied, the system of recruiting the Public Scrvice almost exclusively from i among young people between the ages of sixteen and eighteen must prove unsatisfactory for the plain reason that it excludes university graduates, The_ New Zealand Public Service will not be as efficient as it whould be, and will not attract the best material that is available, until there is a _ special administrative division open to university graduates between the ages of, say, 22 and 25 years, selection being, ns in England, by competitive examination and interview.—Christchurch " Press."

PIONEERS AND DIPLOMATS. Fifty years have elapsed since 18S3, and not many people realise tliat this year is in a ,sense the jubilee of the King Country, for 1883 saw the early surveyor-penetration of that territory, Mr. C. W. Hursthouse operating from the northern end and Mr. John Koch fort from the southern end. Their purpose was to find a line for the Main Trunk railway, but the engineering problems to come, and the immediate reconnaissance difficulties, were overshadowed by the political difficulties with the King Country Maoris. Looking back now, it will be recognised that the surveyors put up a wonderful performance. Even when they had the backing of the Maori high chiefs, they were by no means safe from Hauhau minorities, and Mr. James Cowan's historical reviews have shown the physical violence they met with (approaching close to bloodshed) in their attempt (ultimately successful) to conquer a whole region with a theodolite. The construction of the Main Trunk railway was really a Seddonian performance, but the struggle between surveyor and Maori (following the war of settler and Maori) belongs to an earlier decade. People who now travel by rail ;hroug!i the King Country in a few hours b;; 1 night do not realise how isolated and remote from help the survey reconnaissance parties were in the 'eighties. Their jubilee should not go unrecorded.—Wellington "Evening Post."