GOVERNMENT ADVISERS

Evening Star, Issue 21995, 3 April 1935, Page 8

GOVERNMENT ADVISERS

CIVIL SERVICE CRITICISED COMMENT BY THE ‘ ROUND TABLE• \ The development in New Zealand methods of government in the last few years of the so-called “ Brains Trust ” of special economic advisers is commented on by the New Zealand correspondent of the ‘ Round Table ’ in the March issue of that journal. Particular attention is drawn to the failure of the New Zealand Civil Service normally to provide for the heads of the Government officials with a thorough training in economics and political science. The reference is as follows: — “The session was noteworthy for a pronounced change in the method of government. During the last few years government by royal commission or by select committees has been the bugbear of the political critics, who for the most part seem equally afraid of the 1 growth of power in the hands of the beaurocracy and the imminence of gOi vemment by committees of experts. It seems that one or the other is inevitable in these days of difficult economic problems. “ The Civil Service of New Zealand has not been very successful in producing within its own ranks officials with the requisite training for dealing with such matters. Our Governments rarely include any Ministers who have any training in economics and political science. Mr Downie Stewart (who was in the Massey and Coates Ministries from 1921 to 1928 and the Coalition of 1931-33) was a conspicuous exception ; consequently they have had to muddle through by the old rule of thumb methods or to turn’ in desperation to commission after commission of ‘ business men ’ to solve their problems.

VALUE OF SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE

“ When they suddenly realised that the Government was beginning to act on its own sources of advice on economic matters certain critics indulged in facetious remarks about what they called the ‘ Brains Trust,’ obviously a new feature- in New Zealand politics. For the last two or three years the Minister of Finance (the Right Hon. J. G. Coates) has had on his staff a young member of the New Zealand Civil Service, Dr R. M. Campbell, who spent four years studying economics and political science in London and the United States, and who accompanied Mr Coates .to Ottawa in 1932. “ Since resuming the portfolio of finance Mr Coates has increased this side of his staff, and. there is ample evidence that this is a step in the right direction. Normally a civil service should train officers for such duties, but the New Zealand Civil Service has rigidly recruited its officers at the door of the secondary schools, at the age 17 or 18, so that their only means of widening their knowledge thereafter is by attending as night students at the nearest university college. The number of officers who have risen superior to this system and eqniped themselves for the solution of the higher problems of public administration obviously could not be great. ASSISTANCE TO MR COATES. “Mr Coates, who must be given credit for taking bis political responsibilities with great seriousness, has seen the advantage of attaching to himself men who have given special study, in schools of standing abroad, to the problems that are troubling the country, and are at any rate equipped with some understanding 'of economic theory, which is so repugnant to many wellmeaning business men. The surprisingly competent manner in which Mr Coates piloted the Reserve Bank Bib through Parliament last year was the first fruits of this policy. In the present session he has exhibited the same competent grasp of various intricate economic measures that have come forward, clearly showing evidence of a preparation which would have been impossible without such help.