THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 291, 6 November 1934, Page 6

THE PUBLIC SERVICE

EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY.

SYSTEAI DEFENDED

(By Telegraph —Special to Standard.) wEL.UnI\HJ.OiN, i>uv. 6. AVliat has ueeu caned in nmgland “Tire New despotism —delegation or legislative powers by Oiaer-in-Council lor administration uy paonc servants —is IraiiKiy discusseu and deiended by the Puonc Service Commissioner (All p. Verschaffelt) in ins annual report. There lias been considerable cimcisin of tills piluse, nut cnose WHO voice it, says tne uoninnssioner, overlooK the tact that the growtn in volume of delegated authority has become necessary owing to the increased demands lor new and detailed legislation. “These demands nave arisen, not from the Public Service but from the people themselves. It is clear that the critics do not appear to be alive to the evolutionary change in public administration which has been imperceptibly brought about by the growing dependence of tne public itself in particular of defined classes and sections of the public, upon legislative protection and supeivisionaiy control of matters which in iormer times were considered capable of protection from within the ranks of private activities themselves.” Extensive quotations are made in the report from opinions expressed by the English Commission which investigated allegations that Government departments had been encroaching on the provinces of the Legislature and the Judiciary. It was found, points out the Public Service Commissioner, that delegated legislation is inevitable under the present Parliamentary system, and it would be futile for Parliament to work out the details of legislative changes. The Legislature had not the time to discuss minor matters or technical details. A New Zealand example is the electrical wiremen’s regulations which, according to the Public Service Commissioner, with their mass of technical diagrams and details fill a reasonably sized volume. The English Commission followed criticism by the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Hewart), extended in his book “The New Despotism,” which attempted to show that the Civil Service had attempted to “cajole, coerce and to use Parliament.” The Commission declares that the subsequent official inquiry removed at the outset the foundation for Lord Hewart’s case by acquitting the Civil Service of any such sinister motives, 1 and Lord Hewart himself could not give any examples of abuse of power by civil servants. Turning again to New Zealand criticisms, Mr Verschaffelt remarks: “The misunderstanding is caused by remarks made sometimes in our Courts when application to some new set of facts of a regulation or Order-in-Council is placed before the Judiciary for consideration. Then, in most cases without justification, the erv is carelessly raised in public that the liberty of the subject is in danger by reason of the delegation to officers of the Public Service of powers which should be vested in the Legislature itself. It is overlooked that the primary function of Parliament is the safeguarding of that liberty and that Parliament of itself is incapable of performing the now innumerable administrative functions by which such safeguards as its imposes can best be made secure, for it is clear that liberty can best be secured not by the curtailment of control but by its extension. Conditions of modern society have crowded upon Parliament and, what is no less important, on members of the Government and Cabinet itself, far more than either of them can be expected to perform with efficient consideration to detail. Neither body can devote the time to working out administrative details by which the will of the Legislature can be made capable of execution.” The Commissioner predicts that the more social and industrial legislation increases the greater will be the reliance on the Public Service to execute the legislative will. From a perusal of the English report on the investigation of this modern phase of administration the decision is arrived at, adds Mr Verschaffelt, that it is easy to criticise the growth of delegated legislative authority. The critics, however, are confounded when asked to devise a remedy for the situation they condermn.”