The Public Administration Aspect

Extract

I think that Sir Ronald Edwards and his small team of very busy people deserve to be congratulated upon producing in a remarkably short time a Report that is well documented, well written, generally realistic in its proposals and free of prejudice on such issues as public versus private enterprise. As against this, it may be objected that the Report is inclined to accept rather too readily the orthodoxies of modern “consensus” politics and economics. By that I mean such views as that a mixed economy necessarily achieves the best of both worlds; that nationalised industries should operate as commercial undertakings; and that where nationalised industries are required for some special reason not to operate commercially, they should be compensated in the form of direct subsidy chargeable to the appropriate government department.