THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMISSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22066, 23 September 1933, Page 10

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMISSION

What may be assumed to be an accurate forecast of the order of reference of the Royal Commission concerning local government in the Dominion has been the subject of pertinent comment by the President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce. The inquiry is evidently to be of a much more restricted nature than had been generally expected, or than was suggested in the statement by Mr Coates a month or two ago to the effect that the time was opportune for a complete and impartial survey of local government in New Zealand. The notion of completeness in connection with the projected survey will certainly not be borne out by its restriction to the counties and the rural districts which they embrace. If the commission is to examine the position only in respect of rural authorities it will concentrate its attention on a small portion only of the field of local government, and will simply touch the fringe of the larger problem to w T hich attention has been so frequently drawn. The prospective results must already offer somewhat pathetic promise in relation to the whole business. Rural government requires simplification, and investigation of the working of the county councils in conjunction with that of such bodies as rabbit boards, river boards, drainage boards, road boards, and town boards is very desirable, but figures that have been cited show that an insignificant fraction of the total Dominion expenditure on local government is accounted for by the operation of these minor authorities. If they all went out of existence there would still be some five hundred local bodies operating throughout the country, inclusive of the 125 county councils. The commission will presumably consider the possibilities of amalgamation of counties from the angle of a reversion to a larger and stronger county which was recently mentioned by the Minister of Internal Affairs as a possible basis of local government reform, but counties are rather more easily created than absorbed. In the meantime hospital boards, borough councils, and other bodies -which present local government in some of its most important aspects are to remain serenely outside the commission’s cognisance. The expenditure of the boroughs alone, the President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce has pointed out, amounts at present to nearly half the total local government expenditure, and it is apparent that if the scope of the commission’s inquiry has been correctly indicated, the major problems of local government will not be tackled by it at all. In such circumstances the outcome can hardly be of any extraordinary national import from the economic viewpoint. Against the background of experience the achievements of royal commissions rarely stand out brilliantly. Their recommendations are apt to conflict with what is politically expedient, touching interests which the Government has no desire to antagonise, ; and thus they are frequently ignored. The National Expenditure Commission made bold recommendations with a

view to curtailment of expenditure, but some of its most drastic proposals have not been carried into effect, not because of their actual impracticability, but because they have been politically impracticable. To the Royal Commission as a method of approaching problems that demand solution in the national interest no exceptional value necessarily attaches. Too often the purpose behind it seems to be to afford a Government relief from a responsibility which it prefers not to face itself. But the Local Government Commission should at least be given the opportunity of making the thorough inquiry that is warranted.