PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM

Waikato Times, Volume 95, Issue 14949, 20 May 1922, Page 6

PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM

RAILWAY MANAGEMENT,

OFFICIAL OR INDEPENDENT METHOD. The statement of the Prime. Minister recently mado at Feilding with reference to railway policy and management interests us, as it would all members of tlie public. We are told that the Government proposes some changes in policy. One of the courses intended is to appoint a business agent for each of the islands, who will be charged with the duty of conferring with the users of the railways. The appointment of such Agents appears Jo us to be a very wise move, and if the right type of men are chosen for shch positions it should have good results in the direction of augmenting the volume of the railway transport business done.

Another proposal made has more direct reference to the actual management of this department. It is attended to appoint an officer from each of the traffic, locomotive'and maintenance branches of the service to assist the general manager or, as it is pun—“practically forming a board of experts to report and advise on the intricate questions which arise in connection with dhe operations of the railways.” Of this proposal we cannot determine whether it means a real change in respect to management or merely a repetition of what has previously obtained in a slightly altered form. It is evident that there is no intention of placing the railway under a Board of Management as the branch officers to be selected will act simply as advisers to the general manager. To the layman it will appear that this is a change without a difference, it must be supposed that the general manager has been able to call upon any officer, in- any of the branches mentioned, to render their assistance and advice whenever called upon. If the manager has not been able to call for and secure that assistance under existing circumstances it would disclose something seriously wrong. The stale of railway finance and the policies of administration appear to us to indicate a need for something more than a departmental shuffling of officers, if not the creation of new and ’probably unnecessary positions. Genuine reform, which is called for in many quarters, is not to be found by merely going round in a circle. If those in office are not in a position to provide new and improved methods to rnetfl the call of the' fresh circumstances which have arisen, then, it would appear that the Government’s course of action should be to search outside the official' ring and find the best expert and constructive aid that’ can be got. In January last we wrote thus on the general question of Public Service Reform: —“As members of a long-suffering community we want to know what it i-s thfyj banishes common sense and ordinary business principles from any concern which depends on the Government of a country (whether Reform, Liberal or Labour?) Why does officialdom look at alt problems from a point of view so different from the ordinary man of business? For instance, the Public ‘ Service admittedly wanted to be on; on a new basis, and about ten years ago the commissioner system was established. Now, why was it thought essential ito , appoint men impregnated with the routine and 'ideals of jhe system requiring revision, to reorganise it. If a businessman finds any portion of his establishment out of date and unsatisfactory he brings in new blood to put it in order. He does not put it, into the hands of men saturated with the methods which have caused the trouble. We have seen no reason to alter these views, and they apply to the railway service as well as other services. Once it is granted that mistakes, wrong methods ’and errors of omission or commission exist in a service thesetting up of a Departmental Committee, Board or Commission (call it what you please) does not seem to us sufficient. Is is not evident that such a committee is wrongly constituted,’ because the greater the economies and the more reform they propose, the more evident does it become that their own previous, system was wrong. It is not unlike seeking a man to try and sentence himsblf for an offence he has committed. * When filings have got to the stage that we find responsible men mooting the idea of selling our national railways it seems lime when railway reform should be handled on more thorough lines of a business overhaul than is yet presented in the Government's pronouncement, unless we entirely misunderstand what has been stated by Mr Massey.' We have full ’confidence that if asked for the services of some expert business-men can be procured voluntarily io examine and advise with respect to the business methods of this important service, and such is the line of reform we desire to see taken.

(Contributed by the New- Zealand Welfare League.)