WARNING OF 1870

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 168, 12 April 1932, Page 5

WARNING OF 1870

Public Works System HISTORY’S LESSON Expansion of Department llevcrsing a telescope on au object often places that object in the right perspective, says a statement issued by the Associated Chambers of Commerce. It has never occurred to many people that there may be an alternative to the present system of the State carrying out public works through the Public Works Department, whereby the waste and extravagance on public undertakings could be obviated. There is an alternative, and it is that all public works be carried but by privt.i-' enterprise under contracts with the Government, as was the practice at the start. "A prophet spoke over CO years ago, and time has proved him to be true. He was Mr. J. Cracroft Wilson, C. 8., a member of the House of Representatives in 1870. When members were discussing the Immigration and Public Works Bill of 1870—which measure sought to create the Public Works Department and establish the machinery for the State to have public works carried out—Mr. Wilson glimpsed the years ahead, and his prophecy is still to be read in the Hansard report of that debate, on page 395 of volume No. 8. He said ‘that the increase in taxation might easily become excessive through the desire to govern too much and through the vain lllusio.. of establishing State wealth by vast enterprise,’ and added: ‘I venture to say that if this scheme is carried out in its entirety not many years will elapse before the truth of what I am now urging will be proved; that the whole system will lead to an amount of taxation that will be unbearable, and that it is a scheme in which observation and science have had no hand but where empiricism and expediency have done everything.’ ” Board of Advice. This prophet was not without his backers, the statement continues. Mr. H. Driver, a supporter of the Government, attracted considerable attention by his criticism of the Government Bill. He said (page 394) that the only way to ensure that the money

would be properly spent was to appoint a board to assist the Minister of Public Works. Not a shilling should be spent except upon the recommendation of such a board, even if a good deal of preliminary expense were incurred. He believed that the scheme would sooner or later be thrown down to be scrambled for unless proper machinery were provided for tlie expenditure of the money. It was impossible for any Government to resist the pressure that would be brought to bear against them to spend money improperly. As it has proved, there was more than a hint of another true prophecy in those last two sentences. The Bill was passed, with the inclusion of a plause providing for the setting up of a Board of Advice, to assist the Minister of Public Works. But no board was appointed, and the next year a Bill was passed including a clause deferring its appointment, while iu the next year again a third Act repealed the provision altogether. How did tnis come about? It was because the Government at that time took the case for public works strongly in hand and spent the money wisely and well. It was helped materially in this by contracts with private enterprise, as is made clear in the first report of the Public Works Department in 1871, in which the Minister states: “Two principles of action have been adopted: first, tlie execution of all work by contract, and secondly, competent, professional supervision. Thus, waste of money and of labour is prevented, and commensurate results obtained.” In those lines lie the solution to the economical performance of public works to-day. Legacy of Governments. The report of 1871 and the speeches in Hansard show plainly that the State ’looked naturally to private contractors to execute all tlie public works of tlie country; did tlie Government consider building roads, bridges, railway lines .or any other public work, it secured the services of competent private contractors, and it was never intended that the department sbou’d become the huge employing machine that we have known in later years, or that it should ever carry out tlie great bulk of public works at the enormous cost that the taxpayers have good reason to know. But Governments came and went, rose and fell, the department took more and more works info its own hands, it grew and was expanded beyond its proper function, it became subject to political purposes, and it precipitated public undertakings which were not so necessary for tlie development of the country as they were for keeping employed tlie growing army Hint now bore tlie imine of tlie Public Works Department. There was no board of advice no expert check on tlie wisdom of the expenditure of these millions. Tlie system had been “thrown down to be scrambled for,” and taxes loaded the nation. The prophecy had come true. It is time for the country to get back to the proven practice tha brought satisfaction and economy to the Dominion sixty years ago—the letting of all contracts to private enterprise and the restriction of the department to its proper sphere as a clerk of works, the statement concludes, and, it might well lie added, the careful investigation beforehand of the economic rnther than tlie political necessity of carrying out any particular piece of work nt all.