AN UNWISE STEP.

Northern Advocate, 23 August 1913, Page 4

AN UNWISE STEP.

Considerable attention was directed during the discussion on the Ad-dress-in-Reply to the appointment of Mr. Royd Garlick by the Minister for Education as director of physical instruction. Both the method of the appointment and the salary paid to Mr. Garlick were taken exception to. Indeed, the noise about the matter made by members of the House opposed to the Government was more than usually loud. There was in this business good ground for criticism of the Government, for after everything is said in justification of the appointment that is possible, it seems undoubted that the new position was filled in a more or less hole-and-cor-ner way—no one but Mr. Garlick was

given an opportunity to make application —and that the salary given him is out of all relative proportion to the responsibilities of the position. On these points there scai-cely exists room for difference of opinion, and we at any rate conceive it to be a good thing that when a Ministry makes a mistake or departs from the principles it has promised to follow there should be someone ready to direct attention to the occurrence. Yet though it is right that the Gov-

ernment should be submitted to criticism in connection, with this business we cannot resist the conclusion that the step taken by Ministers of referring the " allegations " made by their opponents to a special committee, whose proceedings are being reported in the newspapers, was a grievous error of judgment. The object of the committee is, apparently, to discover what measure of truth there is in the allegations of favouritism on the part of the Minister. But the evidence is almost wholly directed to discounting Mr. Garlick by showing him to be incompetent. Most people will, we think, sympathise with Mr. Garlick. The appointment may be open to criticism —as indeed appointments by governments very frequently are—but it is one thing to say this and another to argue that under such circumstances as have arisen Ministers, in permitting an appointee to be placed as it were in the prisoner's dock, are doing quite the fair thing. No matter who the Government may appoint to any position there are bound to be dozens of people ready to say that the individual selected is unfit for his duties —is a thirdrater —and that they, the disgruntled outsiders, are very much more competent. This is the case whether the appointment is a minor one or one to a post of great responsibility. Here in this case, however, we have opportunity given the -disappointed and the critical to come forward and give public testimony as to their opinion of the man selected by a Minister for a particular post. The spectacle is singularly unedifying. Are we to understand that this inquiry is going to form a precedent, and that whenever a member of Parliament can bring witnesses to say that a person appointed to a public position is incompetent we are going to have a " pub-, lie inquiry"? The prospect would be distinctly alarming. The Minister should have stood to his ground over Mr. Garlick and having stated the facts from his side have allowed the issue to rest with Parliament in the ordinary way. He should most emphatically not have had this objectional " open inquiry " which, while it may absolve him in a mechanical way from a charge believed by nobody, does serious injustice to a servant of his Department.