A Plague of Officials.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15954, 16 July 1917, Page 6

A Plague of Officials.

There hare lately been many public protests ill Britain against the growth o.f tlio army of officialdom since the ■war began. The protests Lave not been grounded on any fear of official tyranny as a menace to the liberty of the people, but liavo been inspired by alarm at the costlincss of the thing, and irritation at the loss of efficicncy wliich follows upon an undue multiplication of public departments and official posts. The "Daily Mail" recently noted as a curiosity the official combinatioii of initials," "A.D.1.M.D.5.F.P.D.8.A.F." which stands for "Assistant Director, "Implements and Machinery Depart- " ment Section, Food Production' De- " partmpnt, Board of Agriculture and " Fisheries" This titlo is a straw which shows how the wind is blowing in the Tvorld of administration. It is unhappily impossible that a great war such as that in which Britain is engaged can be managed-by a small committee of supermen governing a small number of compact Departments. An increase in the number of Departments and Boards is .'unavoidable, but everything goes to show that the thing has been much, overdone, and some prominent mon have already begun to agitato in order that public opinion may be sufficiently awakened to prevent the perpetuation of excessive officialism after the war. Sir Algernon Firth, in his presidential ■ address to the Association of Chambers of Commerce, referred to this evil in serious language. "Nobody " objects," ho said, "to the control of "industries which are .necessary for the " carrying on of the war, but when we "see an ever-increasing growth of "staffs going on day by day for new " Departments of State, we cannot bo "-without misgivings as to how it is "all going to end. During the war '/ business men have to submit, but when " peace comes it will need strong action " and co-opcration amongst all to limit "the interference, and reduce all these "officials to their proper activities." It is well known that once a Department is created it immediately proceeds to grow, and the whole body of officialdom strives to provent it from being either checked in its growth or done away with. Sir Henry Parkes used to say that if you put an office boy ,in an omptv room in a Government Department you would find three or four years later that he had grown into a large and important public Department, and Sir Henry did not greatly overstate the facts. The experience of business men in Britain has boon that instead of making easier the despatch of business, the multiplication of officials has hampered it; and this is natural enough, for through all the new offices runs the blood of the main trunk of officialism, lost in forms, strangled in red tape, and with no direct incentive to produce the best results. Much more serious at the present time is the -waste of money that results from this plague of officials. "The public,'' the "Morning Post" says, "are bitterly " aware that while they are expected "cheerfully to submit, and do submit, '• to grinding taxation, the spending "Departments of tho Government are " wasting money by the bucketful. The " excessive multiplication of Govern- " ment Departments is an open scandal.

There is no private business in the 1 ' world which is conducted with so "ostentatious a disregard of economy

"in administration. Could a compari- " son be instituted between one of the Government Departments and a great "London bank, it ■would be found "that the bank can transact its affairs " with about a third of the staff the " Government Department employs in " getting things done as slowly as possible. The free disposal of public " money inevitably breeds an irreeponsi- " ble prodigality. Xcw hire ' enormous hotels, plant a kind of " native village on every vacant site in "the Metropolis, and populate them " with thousands of officials, clerks, "typists, and messengers; and the "public pay.'' "Wo have not reached the point at which this could truthfully bo said of New Zealand, but the danger of officialism is as great here as anywhere in the world. There can be few, if any, countries iu which the servants of the State are a larger proportion of tho population than in New Zealand, and the tendency has long been towards a further expansion of tho .army of public officials. It is just as necessary here as in England that public opinion should awake to the fact that the bulk and cost of the body of officialdom must be kept well in hand, on financial grounds, aud on grounds of efficiency as well.