The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1911. THE CIVIL SERVICE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7449, 25 May 1911, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1911. THE CIVIL SERVICE

The circle seems to bo now complete. Wo have been told that the Ministry is “corrupt”; that the community has been “debauched”; and now Mr Herdman gives the good people of Levin to understand that men who have received promotion in the public service are sycophants and incompetents. Levin may have been profoundly stirred by these revelations, but we have our doubts, for it must occur to anyone reading the report of Mr Herdman’s utterances that even after allowance is made for his very natural desire to paint Ministers tho blackest possible huo ho has done a very grave injustice to practically every responsible public officer in this country. It may be true that sycophancy has led to promotion in the Civil Service. We would hardly like to argue that it has not. It may also be true that merit has not always received its just reward. Allow this for the moment to bo granted. But would any reasonable man maintain that in the commercial and industrial world around him “the timeserver, the sycophant and the obsequious flatterer of the powerful” does not succeed? So long as judgment is fallible it will be so and no system of selection which rests upon human contrivance will eliminate weaknesses and vanities on one side, and calculating craft on the other. No doubt Ministers and heads of departments have made mistakes. We would bo greatly surprised to hear it said they had not. Certainly Ministers would shrink from making any such claim on their own behalf. But to say this is a very different thing to smirching tiro whole public service and practically placing every promoted officer in the position of defendant against a charge of personal baseness and incompetence. It was surely not necessary to do this in order to make out a case for control of the Civil Service by a commissioner and inspectors. Wo would be exceedingly loth to think that any considerable number of Civil Servants owed their promotion to anything but to their length of service, their ability and general fitness. The great majority of men in tho Civil Service of New Zealand who have risen above the rank and file are hardworking, conscientious officials, devoted to the public interest and often enough discharging their duties for much lower remuneration than, is paid for similar services in other avenues of employment. They might be “happier” under commissioners and inThere is room for difference of opinion on that point. We do not believe they would, nor do they think so themselves. If Mr Herdman is sincerely concerned about the happiness of the service he adopts a rather eccentric method of showing this by holding it up to ridicule.