ECONOMY AGAIN POSTPONED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17853, 6 August 1921, Page 8

ECONOMY AGAIN POSTPONED.

The indifference of the Government to the imperative need for public economy is strikingly illustrated by the attempt made by the Acting-Prime Minister to evade responsibility for retrenchment in the Civil Service. Sir Francis Beli says the intervention of Parliament may be required. In point' of fact the Government has full power to reorganise or to reduce its staffs, subject to such statutory rights as officers enjoy in respect to compensation and superannuation. Jt is the duty of the Government to determine what measure of retrenchment is advisable in the interests of public economy and efficiency, and to apply it in the full knowledge that Parliament will give thorough-going support. But< were the authority of Parliament as strictly necessary for the pruniug of the Civil Service as Sir Francis Hell infers, it. should have been obtained a year ago. In a report dated April 30, 1920, the Public Service Commissioner, who may be adjudged a temperate critic, warned the Government against the insidious growth of the bureaucracy, lie wrote :-—

I "There seems to be a tendency on the j part of some departments to endeavour to 1 expand their operations and .'-•talis, the 1 reasons for which arc not so apparent. With a view of restricting this tendency I the commissioners have asked for tin; production of evidence thai Parliament has authorised the expenditure or that Government is prepared to find the necessary funds. While this to some extent meets the cape, it appears to the commissioners that if the Public Service is to be kept within reasonable bounds the formulation of a more comprehensive method o( controlling such matters is worthy of consideration." This is a clear invitation for Governmental, and, if necessary. Parliamentary intervention. Yet two sessions of Parliament have passed since then and nothing has been done. Mr. Massey did indeed institute what was practically a depart- ) mental inquiry, but it yielded no results that the public has been permitted to learn. The position now is that the Public Service is admitted to be overstaffed, surplus officers are being retained on the grounds of humanity " during the present winter, at all events," retrenchment in the words of Sir Francis Bell is " obviously essential." Yet when it is reminded of its responsibility for reducing administrative expenditure the Government shields itself behind Parliament and offers the Public Works Department, the one department in which there can be no thought of retrenchment, as a scapegoat. It is time the Government learned that the public demands economy, not stagnation. The efficient development of the natural resources of the Dominion is not an extravagance. It is not the capita.] expenditure of the Public Works Department which has swollen the current expenditure to an insupportable level, but the vast expansion of administrative staffs. The bureaucracy has indulged without let or hindrance its mania for creating new departments, for subdividing the old, for finding two men to do the work of one, and, as the Public Service Commissioner has testified, more effective means must be found of keeping it within reasonable bounds. The Government has appealed to Parliament. In order that Parliament may be better informed of the need for action let a commission of business men be appointed immediately to investigate the Civil Service and the whole field of public expenditure. The British Government, which has made at least a sincere effort to enforce economy, has realised the value of outside aid and has appointed a committee of business men to revise departmental estimates. Such a committee would find in New Zealand a harvest of extravagance ready for the sickle.