CABINET DUTIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 107, 2 November 1942, Page 4

CABINET DUTIES

Satisfactory features of the re-allo-cation of Cabinet posts made necessary by the resignation of National Party representatives from the War Administration are that the handling of all man-power problems has been made the responsibility of one Minister and that the position of Minister in Charge of War Expenditure, vacated by Mr. Holland, lias been kept alive. The man-power question is so vital to an efficient war effort and so complex that it is desir-

able that responsibility should not be divided between a Minister of National Service and a Minister of Industrial Man-power. The combining of the tw ro positions is a logical course and should result in a more balanced policy. There is one weakness in the new arrangement, however, and that is that Mr. McLagan, who is to undertake the duties, is not a* member of the House of Representatives. This will mean that the Prime Minister or some other member of the Government, already carrying heavy burdens, will have to act as his spokesman when manpower questions are discussed in the House. Such an arrangement is never wholly satisfactory when the issues involved are of great public interest —as those touching manpower now are. In this instance the weakness may be considered unavoidable, as Mr. McLagan was brought into the War Administration to deal particularly with the industrial effort, but the arrangement should certainly not constitute a precedent for peacetime allocation of Ministerial duties.

During his coniparatiyely short tenure of office as Minister in Charge of War Expenditure, Mr. Holland provided evidence of the desirability of such a portfolio.' There is always a clanger in time of war of wasteful trends developing in the expenditure of public money, and the lines on which Mr. Holland was working held out hopes of a closer check being maintained. His proposal to set up committees to study economies and to examine prospective expenditure from the War Expenses Account was sound, and it is to be hoped that its possibilities will not be overlooked by his successor, Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Barclay's assumption of the portfolio of Primary Production for War .Purposes, in addition to Marketing and Agriculture, is logical. As we pointed out when the War Administration was formed, there can be no real dividing-line in the control of primary production, whether it is for war purposes or for civil purposes. It must all come under the one plan. That being so, it seems hardly necessary lo retain the separate portfolio.