The Waikato Times. With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1931. NEW BILLS.

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18405, 12 August 1931, Page 6

The Waikato Times. With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1931. NEW BILLS.

Opposition to the new Transport Bill is reported from many quarters and for many reasons and the Minister for Transport has put forward his statement respecting the Bill. He says it is not designed to bolster the railways, but as this has not been a genuine charge there is no special reason to "uphold the Bill on that account. At the same time it seems somewhat ridiculous to set up a Board of Directors to manage the railways, and then appeal to another board to know whether this Board can run them or not. It is an exemplification of the idea so strongly held in Wellngton that no one can be trusted to conduct their own business unless this is approved by a civil servant who has gone through the usual routine. The commissioners who are to decide on transport are to be appointed by the Government, and this we hold to be a fundamental error. Such commissioners will either be appointed out of departments or they will be political appointments. A local man will have knowledge that any man from Wellington must take long to acquire. If it be a political appointment It is not likely to be held long enough for the knowledge to be acquired. The whole idea that wisdom can only come fro-m afar and can nevei be found in a local man is a bureaucratic conception which we should do well to defeat. The Minister makes great appeal for the power to restrict competition. The tendency of to-day is for competition to disappear and for combination to take its place. The time will come when Governments will be taking the power to regulate combinations, and they certainly should not hasten the time when competition is to disappear entirely. The provision in the Bill that any appeal from a licensing authority is to be made to an Appeal Court set up in Wellington is a great objection to the Bill. Judges are men who have been through a long training in the taking and considering of evidence. Their decisions are subject to an appeal which may be made to a gathering of judges. None of these qualifications exists in the case of the licensing committee to be set up by the Government or of the Appeal Court which is to consider any appea from the licensing committee. Law and justice are not gifts open to the man in the street; they are possessed in the proportion in, which proficiency is acquired first by study, then by experience. In New Zealand we constantly endeavour to set up courts in which lawyers shall not appear. It may safely be said that justice also will not appear. The whole of th Transport Board is an attempt to create another large department with wide powers with endless patronage -for the Government, and prizes for bureaucracy or for political supporters This is not a time in which any sympathy will be felt for an extension of bureaucracy. The depression that exists has called attention to the over-government of the country, and when this is looked into and the huge Increase in numbers seen there will be a demand in all quarters for a reduction of costs of government at least to alleviate the increased taxation required. A further bill is before the country dealing |,vith building by-laws with provisions against dangers from earthquake. If more were known about earthquakes, if we knew the cause and when they may be expected legislation of this kind would have more excuse, but at present we are in ignorance on such matters. The proposed legislation is to guard against such dangers as the Napier earthquake showed to be probable. The next earthquake may disclose a totally different class of dangers. Even the dangers as shown by the Napier earthquake are not guarded against in the Act, if we may accept the opinion of our architects. The Bill provides for Government inspection by officers of the Public Works Department whose training and experience has given them no special fitness for this work. Nevertheless, 1 they are to travel all over the country and supervise the work of local bodies ■ inspectors whose capacity, man for i man, is the same as theirs, and whose ’ experience is greater. There is to 1 be a fee of which one-half is to go to the Government, for these Public Works inspectors and half Is to be devoted to research into earthquakes. This is likely to develop into a refuge for those whom the Government -cannot provide for in any other manner. There will be much travelling about the country with the necessary addition ot travelling expenses. No good ' purpose will be served, but one more addition to the growing numbers of bureaucracy will be made. We denounce the Russian system by which tire Government conducts ’ everything, but we are fast passing , into a similar system by which every . man's business is to be supervised, inspected, controlled and dictated by ' some official, who has had Hie good i fortune to obtain entrance into the civil service and has passed the necessary 1 twenty years of tits working life in ' routine work. This Is the growing danger of the. age; men are so ab- ■ sorbed in their own business that they i allow the government of the country 1 to pass Into the hands of a small class ' whose career has given them no experience al Uxe reauirements of life.

It is useless to talk about democracy unless men are prepared to take steps necessary to carry it out. If every man concentrates on his own bit of money-making he will find that the results have largely been taken from him by a special class of so-called experts who dictate to him what he is to do and how he is to do it and in the end will run away with much of the fruits of his Industry.