RULE BY RED TAPE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18653, 7 September 1922, Page 6

RULE BY RED TAPE.

The frankness of the Minister of Railways with respect to a breach of the railway regulations by school children, to which his attention was directed in Parliament this week, was vividly illuminating. It appears that in the North Island school children have been charged “excess” on loaves of bread or pounds of butter which .they were carrying to their homes for their parents. “School children are carried free on the railways,” the Minister says, “but they are not allowed to take baggage with them.” By way of interrogation a member exclaimed “Not even a pound of butter P” To which the Minister replied that “it does not matter if it is a pound of butter or a ton of cheese—a rule has to be enforced.” Quite so! A rule in Government departments is a rule and nothing more. It may be either inequitable or nonsensical, but as it is the xmle it must be enforced. It may outrage common sense, but it must be enforced. Very probably the school children have been carrying their lunches to school and if it is a breach of the-rule for them to take a pound of butter or a loaf of bread home with them, presumably a much more serious breach is committed by children whose lunches, composed of both bread and butter, with the addition of a little cake, are taken into the railway carriages. The dominion, which in common with some other countries suffers from an excess of bureaucratic interference, may not be in immediate danger of strangulation by red tape, but. many departmental rules are in force which are as irksome as they are unnecessary. In private and business life the exercise of common sense and of the saving grace of humour discourages the exercise of ridiculous interference with the convenience of citizens. In the discharge of departmental functions there is too little scope for the exercise of common sense and none at all for the exhibition of imaginative humour.