CIVIL SERVICE REFORM UNDERTAKEN IN CHINA

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23973, 14 June 1943, Page 4

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM UNDERTAKEN IN CHINA

FAR EAST

[By GUENTHER STEIN]

CHUNGKING. The Chinese Government recently has been devoting much attention to the urgent and highly important task of administrative reform. One of its recent orders requires reduction of all overstaffed Government offices. Some superfluous organisations may be abolished entirely, and others will close down sections that are not really essential, while all of them are to be given an opportunity to nd themselves of officials who are either preoccupied or inefficient. The Chinese Civil Service so far has no regular pension scheme, but the Government is to provide for those who are to be honourably discharged sufficient financial assistance to set them up in business, preferably in rural areas, or to enable them to return to their homes in ..the interior. An attempt will be made to use officials who are at all suitable for educational work as teachers, in order to fill some of the vacancies in village schools. The fact that there is practically no unemployment in China at present will make it relatively easy to prevent serious hardships in consequence of these dismissals. Chances for Promotion This measure is expected not only to increase efficiency by streamlining the administrative machinery and to provide possibilities for the promotion of young officials, but also to enable the Government to improve the living conditions of the remaining officials. Apart from this, the exodus of thousands of families from Chungking and other administrative centres is to benefit their general populations by relieving the housing shortage and by reducing the heavy demands for food and other essentials which have raised their price levels considerably above those of rural areas and smaller towns. Another recent instruction of the Generalissimo reminds all Government and party organisations of the insufficient enforcement of a two-year-old order by which they were told to pay special attention to the threefold character of their work: first, the concrete planning of action; second, the strict execution of plans: and, third, examination of the results achieved. This scheme was to overcome the haphazard ways in which many organisations were handling their tasks from day to day without looking ahead and without keeping track of their success or failure. ' All the various grades of government and party organs therefore are to establish two kinds of special committees for planning and examination with the respective tasks of elaborating what action is to be taken and of following up its effects in order to draw lessons for further planning. Co-ordination Scheme The Central Planning Board and the Commission for the Examination of Party and Political Work, two highranking organisations which have so far exerted less practical influence on the Administration than the Government desires, are to supervise and coordinate these networks of committees under the direction of a newlyappointed vice-chairman of the Supreme National Defence Council, who is to devote himself entirely to this

bv Arrangement with the “Christian Science Monitor.”)

task. Time limits ranging from Marck to September have been given to all organisations for the establishment of these committees. This order underlines the personal instructions given by the Generalissimo at the end of last year to all administrative organs “to take stock of their respective work and to find out and report about their own merits and demerits in order to create a basis for the necessary reforms.” Increased emphasis recently has been laid by the Generalissimo on the steady exhortation of Government ' officials to greater efforts and conscientiousness. especially on the regu- - lar weekly occasion of the Sun Yatsen memorial meetings, which take place every Monday morning in every single government and party office ' throughout the country. The press, too, is writing a good deal about the shortcomings of the administrative machinery and the need for its reform, underlining the frequent admonitions of the Generalissimo giving expression to popular criticism, but also reminding the Government of the role which the hardships of the officials are playing in the problem of administrative defects. Situation Difficult The Government does not deny that the material situation of the officials is far from satisfactory, since their salaries have been increased infinitely less than prices have risen during the last few years, but the officers and soldiers of the Chinese Army are having an even poorer life than Government officials of equivalent rank, and they ‘ would have a priority claim on higher pay if the general economic and financial situation were to allow a further increase of State expenditure. The maintenance of an army of 5,000.000 men and of a civilian army of millions of officials and other Government workers in a territory which yields comparatively little tax revenue is a much greater problem than many people realise, especially because of the rise of prices. The ‘‘China Times” recently demanded that State expenditure should be “increased in proportion to the rise of the price level” without too much regard for the problem of price stabilisation. The reason for this demand is thattotal State expenditure in 1942, if measured in terms of the average prieftlevel that prevailed in Free China last year, was little more than one-half as high as before the war in 1936, although the actual dollar figure has of course risen very considerably. This means that the vast increase of .governmental tasks on account of the war was accompanied by an actual decrease of the purchasing power of the Government’s total revenues from . taxes and borrowing on account of the continuous rise of prices. Nobody . denies that a greatly increased revenue could be raised from taxing the well-to-do. Some efforts in that direction are actually being made, But further improvements of the administrative system are the prerequisite for making full use of the potentially very great sources of non-borrowed revenue. This is one of the reforms the . Generalissimo is endeavouring to bring about, in spite of tremendous difficulties.