INNATE CONSERVATISM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 6, 8 September 1913, Page 4

INNATE CONSERVATISM.

The Public Service Commissioners comment on many things in their report, and amongst them on “the habit of public servants to rely upon obsolete systems of work, because of their innate conservatism.” They go on to say that the. Commissioners could npt fail to observe in the course of their inspection, that the outstanding feature of a number of departments is their innate conservatism, which has often been carried to such an extreme as to discourage excellent schemes for improvement, which, it carried out years ago, would have saved the country large sums of money. .“It is difficult in all cases to' account for the way in which some departments cling to costly tradition. A desire for peace on the'part of controlling officers no doubt blinds their eyes to the fact that they are expected to he on the alert .to adopt means which will result in 'greater efficiency or greater economy. When it is added that in some departments promotion has often been the result of

seniority, irrespective of the merits of the. officer promoted, it is evident that officers with a limited outlook have drifted into positions which could, under the old organisation, bo In-Id without the need for the study

of efficiency or economy. Tho tniilency is not only to follow obsolete systems, but also to regard them as llio only perfect ones.. Some departments seem to have changed their methods in only a slight degree for rears, and even now lime is being exKuided in collecting information for -.‘turns which are absolutely useless.

)no of the, most expensive tradition; s that of clinging to systems of work mrformed in tlu v old Provincial delurtments. in the case of one larg ‘ lepartment each of the district officers

ppears to be working oh the old Proineial system, which varied in every hovinee. This is well known to the )epartment, but apparently no one as yet had the energy or the courage n establish a uniform system. Tl'lio esult is that when an officer is reioved from one provincial district to

pother he had to a large extent tc arn his business over again.” A icery state of things which most peoe know existed for years past.