NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 765, 14 March 1910, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The advice given by Lord Kitchener 'in his report, that "a citizen force_ should be kept outside party politics," has given rise to some comment of an undesirable sort. One of the Christchurch papers says that the maxim quoted "is taken as a suggestion that military affairs should not be under the control of the citizens' representatives," and that several members of Parliament have- undertaken to "use all their influence to prevent supremo control being placed in the hands of military authorities." We need hardly say that in common with everybody else we are utterly opposed to the establishment of a military oligarchy responsible to nobody. The idea of such, an oligarchy is so preposterous as not to require discussion. What, then, are we to infer from the fact that it has been put forward as a possibility 1 An attempt, we are afraid, to create the impression that such an oligarchy is the single alternative to a defence system managed and controlled on the same lines as, say, the Labour Department or the Railways. The public will probably be told that the defence system is -a branch of the public service, and that it must, therefore, be under Ministerial control, directly or indirectly. It will also bo urged, no doubt, that only ■

by keeping to the system of this Ministerial control can the people's representatives be enabled to nave the final voice. Now, everybody knows perfectly well that Ministerial control is the one system of departmental government which effectually prevents the people's repr sentatives from exercising the supreme authority. Ministerial control is the negation of true Parliamentary government, as we have shown over and over again by references to the administration of nearly every Department of State, and even to the administration of statute law. Parliament must have the final control of the new defence system; and that can be secured, and abuses, waste, and corruption can be excluded, only by' having an Army Council of the right kind which shall not be responsible to the Government, but, through a transmitting Minister, to Parliament direct.

It is very remarkable . that the Minister for Railways should show so little concern-for the very great amount of inconvenience he has caused the public by the introduc-' tion of the absurd time-table, about which such strong and widespread complaints have been. made. It is still more surprising, however, that the ioohshness of his action ■■ having. beer, proved up to the hilt he shouldciaiiy, asjie is doing, over repairing the evil he has wrought. Most people looked forward to a reversion to the old time-table arrangements at the beginning of the present month, but Mr. Millae has determined that the public must suffer tho results of the unfortunate blundering of the Minister or the Department—whichever is to blame— until the beginning of April. That is quite bad-enough, but'what the public has to fear is that when the new time-table ia announced it will be very little better than that now in force. Me. Millae is so very re-' W, what the changes , will be that there is good reason to suspect that they are not what the pubM- ■.t n clamou ring for. The Minister has made one very serious ■error of judgment recently in connection with this matter, and we trust that .those who use the railways _in_ this district are not to be the victims of another.' It will be much better for the Minister to candidly admit that he made a deplorable'blunder in the first place and seek to remedy, it in a thoroughgoing _ manner,' than to . attempt to cover it up by making a few trifling changes that, will please nobody. It is .-a _ very much more serious matter to the whole of this district than μ-r. Millar .appears to imagine, and a further bungle on his part would prove a very unpleasant thing for him to face. ' ■ ■