The Press TUESDAY JULY 4, 1933. The Public Works Department.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20898, 4 July 1933, Page 8

The Press TUESDAY JULY 4, 1933. The Public Works Department.

The Minister for Public Works, in a speech reported in " The Press" yesterday, defended vigorously, even hotly, the engineers employed by his departme ' It is pleasant to find a Minister repaying loyal service with loyal support; but Mr Bitchener seems to have been unnecessarily truculent. Though the organisation and the policy of the Public Works I Department have been severely I criticised, its personnel, and par- | ticularly its engineers, have a high reputation for technical and administrative ability. The extravagances and blunders of public works administration in New Zealand have been due, as Mr Bitchener virtually admits, to the subordination of expert advice to political expediency. If Mr Bitchener is as jealous for the reputation of his department as his speech suggests, he should defend it, not against the public, but against his fellow politicians. The whole financial history of the country is a proof that Parliament is too susceptible to local and sectional pressure to be entrusted with the control of public works expenditure. Moreover, even if Parliament could be relied on to distribute this expenditure on an impartial consideration of needs, it would have neither the time nor the expert knowledge to enable it to exercise an effective control. Ever since the disaster of the Vogel borrowing scheme, successive governments have been urged to transfer <•-- ' 1 of public works policy to a non-political board. The National Expenditure Commission has endorsed the scheme; and the brief career of the Railways Board has shown that it is practicable and beneficial. The Government can have only one motive, and that not a creditable motive, in refusing to introduce a reform that is 60 years overdue. It can only be hoped that Mr Bitchener's enthusiasm for his officers will lead him to realise that he canilot serve them better than by instituting an administrative system which gives their advice more weight and their abilities fuller scope.