THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21050, 29 December 1933, Page 6

THE PUBLIC SERVICE

TO THM IDITOH OP" TIIP. pmKHH. Sir, —Your leading article Jn to-day's issue is only one of many thoughtful articles you have written 011 matters of general interest which are doing so much to direct attention to administrative work in the public service. Is your analysis of the commissioner's report not a very serious indictment of the attitude adopted by officers occupying leading Government positions? The commissioner may have an unfortunate way of expressing what is in his mind, but his apparent lack of ability in this respect and his efforts to be candid with an innocent disregard for logic are not peculiar to his branch of the public service. It would be interesting to see your commentary on the commissioner's report on the Superannuation Bill, now in the hands of the Government. I am sure you could discuss this much more fully and critically than you have dealt with the question of recruitment. Your concluding paragraph strikes at the very root of suitable selection and personnel, but leaves too much to the imagination as to the reason for this obvious and obstinate neglect. Perhaps you do not care to judge motives. I am of the opinion that the time has arrived for plain speaking—even plainer than you are accustomed to adopt in matters of vital public interest. At least two serious mistakes ore made in New Zealand in connexion with candidates for administrative positions. Insufficient consideration is given to the qualities of leadership when scholarships are being awarded and right judgment is not brought to bear on the important aspect of merit. All I need ask in the former case is what has become of the many Rhodes Scholars who have returned to this country? I must be more drastic in my references to so-called merit. My experience over many years and in several executive positions is that merit is what your superior officer thinks of you, and that is subject to more or less obvious qualifications. Heads of departments as a rule are very limited in their outlook and have no place for men with greater ability than they themselves possess. Adaptability to head office atmosphere takes precedence over initiative and freedom of action. The commissioner talks somewhat glibly of New Zealand being a democratic country, but is it not a fact that modern democracy is largely governed by well-organised minorities —groups of officials with special interests and definite objectives, who perhaps, by energetic concentration and superior knowledge of their own particular department, succeed in imposing their will on the community, not excepting Ministers of the Crown? If any proof is wanted of the coercive tendencies that characterise control of Government departments at the present time, one need only draw attention to the manner in which some, if not all, of the appeal boards are conducted. I am certain that civil servants from the top downwards mean well, anrl it would be interesting to discover whether the autocratic attitude assumed in matters of appointment to executive positions, and in many other directions, can be attributed to personal aggrandisement, a lust for power, a passion for reform according to their own ideas only, or simply an anxiety to avoid trouble. Whether the heads of departments suffer from too much zeal or not they certainly do not encourage the best men to enter the service or their subordinates to develop similar zeal and an endeavour to ascertain the requirements of the public. As you have pointed out, the service is being retarded by a wrong conception of the qualities necessary in all departments of state, and, I might add, by excessive interference.—Yours, etc., HOPEFUL. December 28, 1933.