Local Body Administration

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 91, 12 January 1932, Page 9

Local Body Administration

Sir, —Let us be honest with ourselves and the outside world for once and admit that nine-tenths of this talk of the cost of local body administration is casuistry of the worst kind. What is the use of setting up a Royal Commission to tell us what we already know, viz., that our syster of local government is archaic? What faults are there in this system which wde have not known, condemned and condoned since Sir Joseph Ward’s Local Government Bill was debated and thrown out during the short session of 1912? What do we require to know about local body finance which cannot be found in the greatest detail in the Local Authorities Handbook of 1931? Whether we like it or not, there is only one way in which true efficiency and economy in local body administration can be achieved, and that is to readjust the boundaries of our local government districts in the light of present day community of social and economic interest, and to set up a single rating and administrative authority in each district. In theory, ninety-nine people out of a hundred will agree that this is the proper course to pursue, but there would be a terrible howl from one end of the country to the other if it were realised that such a step would mean nothing less than the complete abolition of every borough, town district, county, road district, and every hospital, harbour, power, drainage, water and river board as we know them to-day, and the setting up in their place of not more than 24 or 25 authorities. Exceptions would possibly have to be made in the case of districts or utilities of a highly specialised functional character, but when all was said and done, the majority of these bodies in point of population, rateable value or complexity of functions, would not stand much more than knee high to a dozen or more county boroughs in the Old Country. Anyone who suggests that there is an unbridgeable gulf between town and country which necessitates separate administration for urban and rural districts, would be laughed out of court by every man who possesses a motorcar, and he who would suggest that the elected members of hospital boards and harbour boards have special qualifications for their job which are not possessed, say, by the average member of a borough or county council, would lay himself open to ridicule. Nevertheless, Sir, the fact remains that if economy means dispensing with the luxury of a council, board or commission for every tinpot function in the community, we do not want economy. It would be a blow to our vanity from which we would never recover.—l am, etc., DEMOS. Wellington, January 11.