PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 226, 27 August 1912, Page 4

PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.

Telegraphic news to-day informs us that yet another one of the .Mac-, kenzie. Commissions has completed its labours. The investigations instituted into the condition of the Civil Service have taken a considerable time and we learn that the report as presented in manuscript is a bulky document. It will not be ready | for circulation for some days in printed form. It is significant that Government is not waiting for the ieport of the Commission to supply guidance. Hon. A. L. Herdman’s bill dealing with reform of the Civil Service will be placed before the House probably to-day, and if the Massey Government has made up its mind what it wants to do before the Commission’s findings have been made available it may be taken t hat j the said Commission lias wasted its! time and performed very little service to the country. If this report of Government intention is confirmed !it will give the public a splendid illustration of the folly of these Commissions. No one is ever materially helped by their investigations to a wider knowledge of a question where principle alone should be the guide, and any Minister with grit and ability can learn from his departmental work and from the experts employed what is the best thing to do to bring about improvement. The country has called emphatically for the removal of political control from the public service and the making of individual merit the true test for promotion and employment, and it, did not need a Royal Commission to | go round the country wasting the! taxpayers’ money to find out what i should be done. Mr. Herdman is ap-1 patently going to prove this by in-| troducing his Bill before reading ai single line of the report which has cost so much money. The fact is that political jugglers like the Ward Government knew- that the Commission was another word for compromise, and when they lacked the courage or genuine desire to take action they fell back upon Commissions.; There is one big Commission of well i paid members which sits every year! in Parliament House to enquire into the business of the country and it is j only waste of time, money and good I honest political purpose to pay men to provide loopholes for members of j Parliament to wriggle out of their! obligations to do the thinking for the! people they are supposed to guide |' and serve. !,