GOVERNMENT BY REGULATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 June 1928, Page 8

GOVERNMENT BY REGULATION.

Even granting the Department of Education were in the right in its dispute with the Wellington Education Board, its proposal to overrule the board by means of a specially anti-dated regulation is wholly reprehensible. The point at issue is in regard to the appointment of a principal of the Teachers’ Training College. The board desires to appoint the officer who has been viceprincipal for some months, and the department does not approve of the proposed appointment. After considerable discussion the department now proposes to seek regulations under an Order-in-Council, virtually taking from the board the power to make appointments on the Training College staff, and to place it in the hands of the Minister of Education. Not only is this legislating outside Parliament, but it is legislation for particular circumstances, a class of lawmaking that always demands the most careful scrutiny by the people’s representatives. It is fairly 'well known that the department regards education boards as excrescences upon an education system which it thinks could be much better carried out by its own officials with, possibly, the aid of local committees to look after window-cleaning, firing and such matters. So far the country has not shown any indication of being converted to the departmental view, and the manipulation of regulations to enable the department to get its own way is not likely to assist in the process. Apart altogether from the question whether thq proposed appointment is the best possible—though this is obviously a matter of very grave moment—there is the larger question whether an elective body is to be overruled, not by an amendment of the law made by Parliament, but by specially drafted regulation. It is to be hoped the suggestion to do so will be withdrawn as readily as it was made.