The Evening Star MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1923. PUBLIC SERVICE CONTROL.

Evening Star, Issue 18239, 2 April 1923, Page 6

The Evening Star MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1923. PUBLIC SERVICE CONTROL.

Three groat planks in Iho platform of tho Reform Party when it camo into power ten years ago were an elective Legislative Council, non-political control of the. Public Service, and an improved electoral system. Provision has been made, on paper, for an elective Upper House, and that is as far as that great net of policy has gone. It is virtually admitted by the Government that tho law providing for this change, which was passed in 1914, and tho dale for whose coming into force has been postponed since then by successive amending Acts, will never be allowed to operate in tho manner that has been provided for on the Statute Book. The power of nomination to the Council being now in its own hands, tile Government finds virtues in that principle which were totally unsuspected by it as an Opposition. In tho matter of electoral reform tho record of the Massey Administration has been as unsatisfactory. The most it lias done yet in that connection has been to repeal tho Second Ballot Act, and allow the crudest of all systems—that of “first past tho post”—to flourish in all the rankness of its imperfections, lint the pledge to put tho Public Service under non-political control has had the most curious history of all. It was actually honored by Reform in tho days of its first zeal, before it had lime to change its mind; but there is no sign that the Massey Government feels any extreme love for the system which it inaugurated. It has i ever extended it to the big Railways Department; by an Act passed in 1918 it withdrew the Rost and Telegraph Department from the Commissioner’s authority except, so far as the making of appointments is concerned? and only a year or two ago it brought down a proposal, which protests prevented it from persisting with, to reduce still further the scope of its own system by exempting certain appointments in the Public Trust Department from its operation. The Public Service itself• was sharply divided as to the merits of Commissioner management when it was first introduced. Now the Public Service Association has become its strongest upholder. The system has not worked perfectly more than any other system. If tho Commissioners made any savings in the service, which was one of tho great advantages promised for their control, they did not prevent its staff and its expenditure from increasing to such dimensions as left room for the heaviest play of the Government's pruning knife when tho burden could no longer be borne. If tho methods of the service have- been made more businesslike the change has not been visible to tho public. But apparently the new regime has had advantages tor Civil servants over that which prevailed before it. At every hint that the Government was not showing sufficient respect for tho plan of its own institution, or had thoughts fur the restricting of its operation, they have been tho first to cry out. An unsatisfactory position, to which the journal of the Public Service Association calls attention in its latest issue, is just now in evidence in regard to tho t'ommissionersliip. Mr W. R. Morris, who had been Chief Commissioner, retired at the end of February, and no permanent appointment has yet been made in his place. The Government has chosen instead lo give an acting appointment to Mr P. Verse ha (felt, who was previously Assistant Commissioner. The Government’s policy of economy seems to have extended to this ruling department of the service as well as to subordinate ones. At tho outset there were a Commissioner and two assistants. Then tho Assistant Commissioners were reduced to cue. Now one officer, apparently, does duty in the place of three. That may have nothing but advantages if one officer is able to do tho work and the reduction can be reconciled with the statute, but it is incongruous in tho last degree, and opposed to the whole spirit of tho Act, that such duties should be entrusted to an officer who has no more than an acting appointment, The ‘Public Service Journal’ makes tho anomaly plain vvhith it says: “The Commissioner’s prime function is to ensure that political influence plays no part in the appointments and promotions in the Public Service, and his tenure was made secure under the Act by a seven' years’ appointment. At the moment, however, the officer entrusted with those responsibilities is himself holding the position on sufferance—removable at the will of tho political powers, whose possible encroachment on the Public Service he is there to withstand.” That is a false position which the Government, for its own credit, should be anxious to end at tho first possible moment. A Public .Service Commissioner whom it will have no power to remove should be appointed without delay. The journal seems to be not without some concern lest an appointment should be made from outside the service. In enumerating the qualifications that will be required of whoever may be chosen for such an important position, it lays its chief emphasis upon the fullest possible acquaintance with all the working of departments. Without swell knowledge, it argues, “ the most competent business man would ho at a loss and largely at the mercy of his advisers.” 'There would bo “crop after crop of anomalies and inconsistencies. rendering tho work of control a most exacting and unsatisfactory business.” It would be a bold departure on tho Massey Government’s part —one in a direction for which it has shown all too little favor hitherto—to appoint an outsider to control the service, though no amendment of the Public Service Act would be required for tho purpose. Tho experiment might have all the bad results which the journal of a not disinterested section is predicting for. it, or it might have in a very short time nothing but advantages if the business man selected should be big enough for the post and should have the right advisers. Tho risks woud practically all be obviated, however, if a -business man were appointed ns Assistant Commissioner with tho prospect of succeeding to the chief position when ho had learned more of how the departments work. The methods of the service will hardly bo made more businesslike by those who have learned none but its own methods.