MINISTERIAL BURDENS

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13768, 5 June 1908, Page 4

MINISTERIAL BURDENS

Tmiikk can be no doubt whatever that the weight of office falls crushingly upon any Minister who attempts to fulfil the innumerable duties which have become attached to Cabinet position. But neither can there be' any doubt whatever that the greater part of what has come to be regarded as necessary Ministerial work is entirely dependent upon undesirable methods which, have grown up under the fostering influence of our political tendencies. There is quite no other reason why a Minister should rush at express speed form one corner of the Dominion to another, and should devote his days to travel, his mornings and his evenings to functions, andjiis nights to unavoidable work — as so many of them dothan that the public insists upon this because there is no other way of obtaining administrative attention. Instead of superintending the general conduct of Departmental affairs, and acting as the court of reference in important public matters, a New Zealand Minister wastes his time and exhausts his energies in an infinitude of petty detail. The Departmental officials arc belittled and discouraged by the impossibility of even a few tons of metal being laid on a country road without Ministerial authorisation ; in every Department an inquisitorial state of affairs exists which would not be thought of in any wellmanaged business. It is no wonder, then, that Ministers sink exhausted under the burden of a system which is a development of party organisation, not of State necessity. The remedy is simple enough if it would be accepted. A devolution of administrative control over local affairs, and an intelligent separation of Ministerial superintendence from purely Departmental work, would leave Ministers' with no more official work than they could perform with entire satisfaction both, to themselves and to the country.

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