THE WAY THEY HAVE IN THE BERVIOE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 12003, 22 October 1906, Page 4

THE WAY THEY HAVE IN THE BERVIOE.

In his second* report upon the Public Service of the Commonwealth, Mr Duncan M'Lachlan, the Federal Commissioner, urges the need for economy in departmental administration. "I am no advocate of circumlocutiou," he says, and he compTains of officers being engaged upon "useless, unproductive, and unnecessary work. Then he asks for "the exercise of a sharpsighted vigilance in seeing that each officer's time is fully and profitably employed." That an official in Mr M'Lachlan's position should find it necessary to write in the strain he has done is sufficient condemnation of existing methods; bnt incase evidence should be required to bear out the strictures he has passed, he quote* a specific instance of how the public time is wasted, in order that the service may be decorated with the necessary festoons of red tape. "Let me cite a case," he says in his report, "which, though comparatively insignificant in itself, is yet typical* of a practice and indicative of a tendency, altogether too common throughout the service, of indulging in circumlocutory methods, and is uselesa, unproductive, and unnecessary clercial labour — a tendency which, unless restrained by the exercise of a sharp supervision, and by the inculation of businesslike methods in those under control, must ultimately clog the wheels of official progress. A messenger in a branch office of one of* the central staffs (not three minutes' walk from this office) desired some unimportant information regarding a forthcoming examination. Instead of telephoning, or exercising hi* limbs in walking round to the examiner's, office, he addressed an official communication to me on the subject, elaborately typed on the most expensive embossed official paper. This letter was covered by» another typed document; on the same expensive stationery, addressed to his immediate superior, requesting him to be good enough to transmit the first- named communication to me. These papers were registered and put through the records of the branch office in question, and indorsed by the chief official on to the permanent head. They were then put through the central staff records and indorsed by the permanent head to this office, where they likewise had to be registered." The responsibility raajta upon senior officers who allow such things to be, and Mr M'Lachlau does not hesitate to say io. He is no respector of persons.