The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1909. GOVERNMENT BY COMMISSION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 635, 12 October 1909, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1909. GOVERNMENT BY COMMISSION.

The appearanco of Mr. Herdman's Public Service Bill has raised the general question as to; the respective merits of political and non-political control of the btate Departments. That is a question which can never be raised now without making a few thoughtful peoplo wonder ;■ whether it might not be possible-to place the whole business'of government in the hands of a Commission. Although the idea is not, in the least likely ever to be more than abstractly interesting, it certainly contains the promise of some attractive possibilities. Under such a system a great many evil and wasteful institutions -would disappear,, and upon the wholo the gain could 1 hardly fail to bo greater than the, loss. . The attention that is being paid to tho Commissioner system just now gives a special interest to a Very interesting-movement that is making headway in the cities of the Middle West of the United States. In several of these cities great evils grew up under the ; old system of ward* representation, and .some time ago tho city of Dos Moines, in lowa, took advantage of a now law passed by the lowa Legislature to place the con-: ■trol.pf its affairs in the hands of an independent Board.v Although, what may; prove;_sucoessful in.the smaller world of municipal politics.may nbt'.be practicable' when applied to tlie of the yet local government-is every year be'eomyig more like national government on its 'administrative side,' and in any ' case thero are some leading principles common to local and Imperial politics. The story of the new movement in the : American cities, has some useful lessons.for., those "who are;eagcrifor some 'change from the present.system of control:of tho Public Service in New Zealand. :

M "The : people," says the Now. York i qst, .•'have corao to have a distrust,of professional politicians. They ;do their own thinking, and education in political science has shown them the fault in the old'system of government. Thus it is that tho Middle AVest is taking to the Commission form of government. More'than a dozen cities are how operating under it, undthe success that has attended its operations has.inspired an agitation for its adoption in many others." The object of the new method is primarily "to operate a municipal government as a business proposition." For an unwieldy legislative body and numerous'elective officials with a divided responsibility there is substituted a Board, usually , of five men, in whom is centred the power of making all appointments and the responsibility for tho proper control of all the affairs of the municipality. This Boardis elected on a general municipal roll, and is removable by the people. In Des Moines the new government was sucfrom,the beginning, The Commissioners have improved tho streets, reorganised the police force, weeded out many abuses, cut down exponees whilo giving hotter Borvice, avoided the usual annual deficit, and, in short, as in all-the cities which havo adopted the hew idea, havo providod "a government on business lines in which efficiency counts, and in which overy dollar spent brings a' return of 100 cents :in service." As the Tost puts it, "there isn't anything in that kind of government, for tho politicians! and, naturally, the professional politicians are tho chief opponents of the Commission form." Kansas City, which, has 110,000 inhabitants, is the largest city under Commission government. The idea is spreading rapidly in lowa, whero Keokuk arid Cedar SpringV have got abreast of the movement, and in Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. ■ . " '■■■','..

It is not at all surprising that the opposition -to the new movement is ,, very similar in character to tho opposition which tfie New Zealand Government is offering to tho movement for the estnb< lishment of non-political control of the railways and the Civil Bcrviefi:' In Kansas; the I'ost tells US, "tho politicians, who had-misruled the city for years and saddled upon it a staggering debt, fought the Commission form of government from every angle. They labelled it 'silk stocking' govcrnmenti and declared it ;unAmerican, nori-reprcsentative, and extravagant, and asserted that it would permit tho successful candidates to build, up a self-perpetuating machine the peoplo could never get •'rid of." These phrattes, torn out of their context, and amended by tho substitution of "un-Bri-tish" for ."un-American" would pass muster anywhere as extract's from a Ministerial speech in New Zealand. The parallelism between tho Pmme Minister's ,' arguments ] ' against • Mr. Herdman'b proposals and the arguments ' of the Kansas "grafters" is really very striking. Whore they sneered of "eilk-etocking" Commissioners, Sis

Joseph sneers—wo quote from his speed) of Friday last—at "these excessively independent, high-toned and virtuous Commissioners." Where they recoiled from the "un-American" idea of honest government, Sir Joseph exclaims against a system "that the people would not tolcr•atc for a moment." Where they called the Commissioners "non-rcpresentatrvc,' : Sir Joseph talks of an irresponsible autocracy. The explanation of the parallelism is simple enough. The defenders of established political abuses must always agree in their method of denouncing tho movement for the eradication of those abuses. The lesson of the now movement in America is one that should be remembered by the New Zealand public.