THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JUNE 20, 1932. LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM.

Wairarapa Age, 20 June 1932, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JUNE 20, 1932. LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM.

Many who are taking thoughtful stock of the economic difficulties and requirements of the Dominion may be expected to welcome the announcement by the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. A. Hamilton) that it is intended to dispense with the idea of setting up a Royal Commission to investigate local body administration, and “to get right on with the job.” The Minister is showing the purposeful spirit the times demand and the experiment he foreshadows in co-ordi-nating the work of local bodies will be followed with great interest and with some hope. Most people presumably will agree with Mr. Hamilton that the

present multiplicity of local bodies in New Zealand entails a considerable amount of economic waste and overlapping which the country, particularly in these times, cannot afford.

It has long been recognised in a general way that the reform of local government is overdue in this country and it is fairly obvious also, that this reform. would open the way to considerable simplification and economy in our system of government as a whole. The difficulty has been and probably still is that so many people are determined that their particular part of the system of local government shall not be touched or interfered with in any way. What the Minister has called “a remarkably powerful localised spirit” is manifested not only by the members and electors of minor local bodies and county electors in backblock areas, but by some of those who are taking a leading and capable part in county administration. The attitude of many of those who take this attitude is dominated by a fear of losing effective control of their local affairs, but it is becoming clearer that immediate local control is a luxury for which too high a price may be paid in needlessly heavy costs. The Minister of Internal Affairs has only lightly sketched the lines on which he proposes to proceed, but in essentials the policy he has decided to put experimentally into operation in selected districts amounts to the coordination of local body work by consent of the bodies concerned.

The suggestion for reorganisation (the Minister said in part) entailed assistance proffered to local bodies by the Government in an endeavour to evolve some working scheme of closer co-ordination, enabling them to eliminate unnecessary overhead costs in closer and amicable relationship. The first object was to set up some sort of advisory council for a certain area to supervise the local bodies and advise the Government of their requirements, including new

works and necessary revenue. . . . If an advisory council were set up in each province, the Government would no doubt consider delegating greater powers to provinces. The advisory councils would be self-support-ing and would probably include re-

presentatives elected by local bodies. It might be unduly optimistic to believe that improvements in local body organisation and administration can be carried out speedily enough to lighten, the burdens of the country to any great extent in the present period of stringency. At a reasonably long view, however, reform on these lines would .open the way to almost indefinite progress in economy of the most desirable kind. It may be claimed that some substantial progress has already been made in the right direction, notably in the institution of the highways scheme and in some other developments of local government which no one would how dream of reversing. A great deal remains to be done, however, in the economical co-ordination of- engineering and other services-'-in regard to which we are lagging seriously, in some respects, behind the progress made in other countries. It is perhaps even more important that the reform of local government implies and entails far-reaching reforms in the general government of the Dominion. The delegation to competent local authorities administering large areas of some of the functions now centralised would make for efficiency and economy and at the same time would enable Parliament and the Government to attain higher standards of efficiency in the discharge of truly national duties and responsibilities. A certain sluggishness and lack of initiative to be noted at times in the treatment of national affairs undoubtedly must be attributed in part to the fact that the Government and Parliament are loaded with a great deal of detail work which, might be handled far better by efficiently organised local bodies under a system of decentralisation. The Minister of Internal Affairs presumably has good grounds for bis confident belief that the experiment he contemplates will be given a fair trial and the experiment evidently is one that for a number of reasons will be well worth watching.