RULE BY BUREAUCRATS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27247, 25 November 1949, Page 6

RULE BY BUREAUCRATS

It. was an interesting coincidence—and a timely one as far as the people of New Zealand are concerned —that the reports. of the debate on the failure of the groundnuts scheme and the action of the British Minister of Civil Aviation in refuting the findings of a commission which he had himself set up, should have appeared in the cable news of the same day’s newspaper, • thereby emphasising the feature which they have in common. And it was a further coincidence that in the Daily Times of that day there was editorial comment on some of the ways in which Socialism is undemocratic. As has been remarked on previous occasions, Socialism, whether it be found in Great Britain, Australia or New Zealand, is the same in kind, and the course of events in one country provides lessons —and warnings—for other countries. Founded in a sort of woolly humanism and a peculiar theory of economics, Socialism has developed in practice dangerously authoritarian tendencies. The attitudes of the Minister of Food, Mr John Strachey, and of the Minister of Civil Aviation, Lord Pakenham, provide, basically, examples of the corrupting influences of this power. In each case the Minister has arrogated to himself completely dictatorial powers, and Mr Strachey at least has had his attitude approved by the vote of his Government.

It can be expected that more is yet to be heard of Lord Pakenham’s action. ' It is one matter for a Government to ignore the. recommendations of a commission appointed by it to report upon, say, local government, licensing or gambling, but it is quite another thing for the findings of a judicial inquiry to be set aside by the

Minister of the Department concerned. On the face of it, the president of the inquiry, Mr T. P. McDonald, K.C., was fully justified when he commented that such an attitude “ renders the whole procedure of an impartial public inquiry nugatory, if not indecently farcical.” There is much more evidence available of* trie manner in which Mr Strachey has handled the East African groundnuts scheme. From the first, political capital was made of what was primarily a plan for colonial development. Despite much publicity—in which the Minister shared prominently—little definite information was given and in two parliamentary debates earlier this year Mr Strachey played an unsatisfactory part. To quote the New Statesman: “It is hard to imagine any private company treating its shareholders as cavalierly . . . with regard to information about what is being done with their money.” Recently the information was released. The scheme is a fiasco, its record one of misjudgment and mismanagement. Worse, the auditors reported themselves unsatisfied with the account books and with the completeness of the information available to them. Now instead of 3,000,000 acres being developed at a cost of £25,000,000, it may be possible to develop 600,000 acres by 1954 at a cost of £50,000,000. Mr Strachey has refused to grant a public inquiry and, after having dismissed some officials —but not the chairman —he is obviously prepared to write off £25,000,000 as the price of experience, and to go ahead with little more prospect of success. These are the ways of Socialism—they are not unreminiscent of the ways of Communism—but they are not the ways of democracy.