Book Reviews
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1967.tb02029.x |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
Book
Reviews
Development
Planning:
Lessons
of
Experience
By Albert Waterston. Baltimore, Md.
University
Press,
1966.
Pp.
706.
65s.
Johns I-Iopkins Press. London: Oxford
Mi
.Albert Waterston
is
probably bettcr
informed than anyone else in the world
about the dex elopment plans of the
iiiiderdeveloped countries. Currently
Adviser on Planning Organization to
thc Development Services Department
of
the International Bank, he
has
u
ritten usefully concise studies
of
planning in Morocco, 17ugoslavia and
Pakistan. Now, in what seems likely to
be his
chef
d’oeuvre,
he has attempted a
critical assessment
of
the planning
rxperiences of all the underdeveloped
countries over the last decade and
a
half.
To
cope with the enormous
burden of reading, classification and
analysis that this involves, he
has
enlisted the services
of
thrcr dssistants,
J
.Martin, August T.Schutnacher and
Fritz A.Steuber.
Politicians and administrators who
have the time and patience to study
this book
will
find
it
very
rewarding.
They should be encouraged to make the
former and acquire the latter. Successes
and
failures
in economic planning are
described. classified and-as
far
as
possible
-
explained in terms of political
will and administrative competence.
Thew
are clear, well-documented state-
ments
of
the available alternatives in
respect
of
the approach to planning,
methods of formulation, techniqurs
of
implementation, the relationship
between planning and budgeting,
adrninistrativc organization, and a
host of other important topics. With
admirable objectivity and equally
admirable lack of dogmatism, Mr.
Waterston indicates the range of
choices and tries to suggest. through
the assessment
of
experience, the
circumstances in which the selection
01
a
particular policy or institutional
pattern
is
likcly to be most fruitful.
All
this is done with great professional
competence, and, if nothing startlingly
new emerges from it, Mr.Watrrston
can hardly be blamed: for the great
mass of planning literature, to which
he himself has significantly contributed,
has already familiarized
us
with the
issues that he discusses.
One
is
nevertheless inclined to ask
whether this
will
he one
of
the last, as
well as one of the
best,
books
of
its
particular kind.
To
a
new generation of
writers about politics and administra-
tion
in developing countries
it
must
sound rather old-fashioned
stuff,
displaying the self-confident ‘wisdom’
characteristic
of
those ‘well-informed’
people who never delve very deep
beneath the surface of social
phenomena. In saying this,
I
do
not think
I
am seriously misrepre-
senting the triew that
is
likely to be
taken
of Development
Plannang
by
scholars such as Almond,
Riggs
and
Apter. Certainly, the ‘up-to-date’ may
he
expected to raise their eyebrows
when they encounter
a
‘methodological’
81
PUBLIC
ADMlNISTRATION
statement such as the following,
extracted from Blr.Waterston’s Intro-
duction:
‘As
was to be expected, wide
discrepancies between theory and
practice were frequently encountered,
and this led to attempts to reconcile
the two. Sometimes, the resolution
required proposals for changing
practice, hut at other times
it
seemed
more appropriate
to
recommend
adjustments
in
theory.’
Basically, the question is one
of
the
status and
-
ultimately
-
the utility
of
the ‘teach them to plan’ type
of
book,
characterized hy
a
certain
superficiality of social analysis and a
firmly prescriptive mode of discourse.
One may recognize that such books
have become very much more sophis-
ticated since the days when shortages
of capital and of administrative talent
were regarded as the sole road-
blocks on the path of development. The
complexities of the developmentaI
process are now recognized by every-
one, and not least by Mr.Waterston.
But some of us-including myself,
whose ‘mode
of
discourse’ has been
unashamedly prescriptive
-
are begin-
ning to feel very uneasy about the
assumptions
on
which the prescribers
tend to rest their case. These are being
increasingly revealed as over-simple.
The
most fundamental assumption,
that there exists
a
‘revolution of rising
expectations’ which compels politicians
who wish
to
stay in power to devote
their energies to economic development
and to create instruments capable of
coping with the administrative tasks
involved,
is
now being questioned by
writers such
as
Dr.Mihaly in highly
diyturhing
hooks
such as his
Foreign
Aid
and
Politzcs
in
Nepal.
The question
is constantly being raised, moreover,
whether a particular society may be
justly described
as
‘transitional’
in
the sense that, propelled by ultimately
irresistible forces, it
is
on
its way
towards ‘modernization’.
It
may, after
all,
be
more or
lcss
permanently stuck
in that peculiar half-world which Riggs
lins
christened the ‘prismatic’. Should
8
‘2
not one therefore defer prescribing
economic policies and administrative
reforms until one has deepened one’s
analysis sufficiently to have reasonable
confidence that one’s advice is solidly
based on an understanding of the
structural-functional peculiarities of
the society concerned
?
Do
we not still
tend to rush in too
fast
with our
somewhat facile, culture-bound
‘wisdom’
3
I
do not think that there
is
a
simple answer to such questions.
Mr.Waterston would doubtless reply
that these things are outside his
scope, which
is
wide enough anyway.
His assumption, explicitly stated, is
that there is
some
will to develop on
the part of the governments that are
the recipients of his advice, or at
least that in the community concerned
there are ‘modernizing’ forces, however
weak, that can
be
encouraged and
instructed. He might also say, with
considerable justification, that pre-
scription cannot wait until everything
is
understood. One must still ask,
however, whether, even under these
circumstances, the discussion
of
insti-
tutions and techniques might not be
more relevant to the real problems
that are being experienced
if
it
were
founded on a deeper analysis
of
the
patterns, trends and modes of thought
that give the society its distinctive
characteristics and condition
its
evolu-
tionary potentialities.
What
is
worrying,
at
present,
is
the apparently ever-widening gap
between the analysers and the
prescribers. Some of the people in
both ‘camps’ are acutely aware of its
existence, and also
of
the problems
that arise from the well-known fact
that analysis itself has a prescriptive
force, since one cannot say anything
about the nature of a society without
affecting the attitudes and purposes
of
those of its members who read one’s
words.
To
put the matter aphoristically,
Waterston will encourage even when
he
is
wrong, while Riggs
will
discourage
even
-
and perhaps particularly
-
when
he
is
right. That Riggs himseIf
is
fully
BOOK
REVIEWS
conscious
of
this dilemma emerges
from his very interesting remarks in
the October
1966
issue of the
Journal
of
-4
dnzinistration
Overseas,
where he
writes:
. .
.
if practitioners take the
trouble to rcad my
stuff,
they may
only become more dissatisfied with
their work than they already are-
they will not thereby
be
guided to
solutions. In
other
words,
I
am
somewhat fearful
of
the conscquenccs
at this stage of any general dis-
semination of my ideas
among
practitioners.
’
He
goes
on
to justify the ratlier
notorious obscurity of the language he
uses in
Administration
in
Developing
Countries
on
the grounds that it
would be undesirable, at least for the
present, to write of the ‘prismatic’
society ‘in language which the average
layman could easily understand’.
How
different
is
his world
of
discourse
from that of Waterston,
who
carefully
eschews the technical and the esoteric
and makcs each point almost painfully
clear!
It
may be that
I
am over-conscious
of
this dilemma
as
a result
of
having
read Waterston’s book immediately
after reading
Riggs’s
provocative work;
and
it
may conceivably be held against
me that
I
have occupied the greater
part of a review of what,
on
any
showing, is the best comparative study
of development planning yet to appear
with
a
discussion
of
matters which
are doubtfully relevant to
its
themc.
But
this
seems to me an appropriate
occasion to make the point that the
distance between the public admin-
istration adviscr and the social scientist
has now become
so
great that there
is
a real crisis in the study of under-
developed countries.
If
the social
sciences are to acquire operational
utility in this field, a mighty
cffort
to
bridgc the gap needs
to
be made.
A.H.HANSON
Cniversity
of
Lecds
Great Britain: Quiet Revolution
in
Planning
13y
Everett E.lfagen and Stephanie F.T.White,
1966.
Pp.
180.
$3.95.
Israel: High-Pressure Planning
By
Benjamin Akzin and Yehezkel Dror.
1966.
Pp,
90.
$2.95.
Both
hooks:
Syracuse,
N.Y.:
Syracuse IJniversity
Press.
These two books are issued in thc
National Planning Series edited by
Professor Bertram Gross
of
the
University
of
Syracuse,
X.Y.
To
date,
that
serit,s
also covers
two
Latin
American, three African and
two
Continental countries
-
Italy and
Federal
Germany
-
though, in the last
instance, the book concerns the politics
of
‘non-planning’ rathcr than
of
planning.
The Editor’s prefaccs set the scene
for the more detailed discussions
of
particular economic and physical
planning policies that follow.
He
suggests that Congressional action on
President Kennedy’s economic growth
targets became effective
only
rvl~erl
President Johnson’s Great Society
programme ‘had shifted the emphasis
from the quantity
of
goods to the
quality of
life’
and predicts that,
in
British politics, the stress may similarly
come to move from
‘a
steady pounding
upon cold economic variables’
to
il
concentration
on
‘economics plus’, the
83
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
‘plus’ presumably being our old friends,
the classical issues of more (economic)
liberty, more (economic and social)
equality and more (social) fraternity.
Or have we perhaps left the issues of
1789
behind
us
for ever and entered
an age whose politics are those of
quantity and of economic and social
efficiency (issues of foreign policy
apart)? In the volume on Israel,
Professor Gross, with a light touch,
likens the more extremist economist
who tends to derive oversimplified
advice from
a
simple black-and-white
model
of
the world as he sees
it
to
the Hebrew prophets of old who
would foretell disaster and the wrath
of the Lord
if
their warnings were to
remain unheeded.
Mrs.White
of
the Tavistock Institute
of Human Relations competently con-
tributes to the descriptive chapters
which outline, albeit in fairly summary
form, the developments in British
planning and growth policies between
1960
and
1965,
as well
as
the thinking
behind them. The authors recall the
comparisons between British and other
growth rates which have regularly
been presented to
US
since the late
1950’s
-
but which have sometimes
ignored the fact that some of those
other countries recovered from the
war later than the U.K. or were able
to
draw manufacturing labour from
low-productivity industries (in many
instances, agriculture), from
a
natural
iiicreasc in population
or
from
a
continuing stream of immigrants. How-
ever,
even
in
as
far as these were
one-time, non-recurring benefits which
the U.K. had already expIoited
at
a
much earlier date, the comparisons
served to create a feeling of discontent
(which may well be an essential
preliminary to change) and a desire to
be
rid
of
the succession of four-yearly
.
or even more frequent-balance of
payments crises and bouts of deflation.
In this context. the book refers to the
seminal
P.E.P.
Report of November
1960
on
Growth
in
the
British
Economy
and
to the same month’s important
F.B.I.
conference on
The
Next
Five
Years.
It
was perhaps this conference
as
much
as
any single event that
established the respectability of
planning, not only
in
one but in all
British political parties. The scene
was thus set for
a
Conservative
Chancellor of the Exchequer to propose
the setting up
of
a
National Economic
Development Council, in August
1961,
and the book faithfully traces the
debates
of
that time and the sub-
sequent development
of
planning tools
and policies, since the advent
of
the
Labour Government in
1964
in
particular: policy on productivity,
prices and incomes, on regional, local
and transport planning all find their
place. Throughout, the authors seek
to explain decisions and events in the
light of the discussions and thinking
current at the time. However,
as
the
Editor’s preface recognizes, interpreta-
tion
of
policy is particularly difficult
in this field for someone who was not
at least
in
the wings of the public
stage
at
the relevant time. The book
thus inevitably suffers somewhat in
comparison with the U.K. chapter
of
Andrew Shonfield’s
Modern Capitatism.
Indeed, the authors’ task was not
eased by the fact that this country
tends to regard debates directed at
policy making
as
Official Secrets rather
than
as
a
stage
in
producing an
informed and responsible public
opinion. As a result, we at present
know
far less about policy formation
under Sir Alec Douglas-Home than
the
U.S.
knows about policy formation
under President Kennedy, and text-
books like the present one therefore
tend to be significantly less informative
(or
at
least duller) than their
U.S.
counterparts. Does this attitude in
fact, on balance, help to secure better
government in this country? Or does
it
perhaps derive from H.A.L.Fisher’s
thought that there
is
little to be
learned from history, except that men
seem unable to learn from
history?
Professor Hagen
of
the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology
is
the
co-author
of
the descriptive chapters
and the
sole
author
of
the remaining
BOOK
RF.VIF.WS
ones. He stresses the crucial importance
of the balance of payments as a
constraint
on
U.R.
planning and
recalls that French planning has long
been far less ‘indicative’ than many
influential Frenchnicn would at one
time have had
us
believe: it
in
fact
relies hcavily on ‘active’ planning
through the nationalized and financial
sectors,
on
the offer of positive
incentives and on readiness to dis-
criminate actively between broadly
similar firms.
nut
Professor Hagen is probably
best known here for
his
stress
on
the
importance of social and, above all,
psychological factors, for the attain-
ment of faster economic growth (in
his
book
OR
The
Theory
of
Social
Chunge,
Homewood, Ill.: Uorsey Press,
1962).
Pages
129
to
136,
whcrc he
reverts to this topic, controversial
though they are, may %-ell be his
major contribution to the phnning
debato in the
U.K.
As
already
suggested, he thinks that the con-
tinuing self-criticism by British
management
-
contrasting as this does
with the attitude in the
U.S.,
whose
econoniy has not been growing much
faster in the past decade-may fore-
shadow ‘not an admission
of
defeat,
but an increase in the effectiveness of
management’. On the labour side,
however, Professor Hagen puts forward
the more sombre ‘view
of
one school
of
observers’ that industrial mass
production, with
its
inevitably high
degree of division of labour, tends to
create, in many societies of different
types, a sense
of
anonymity, root-
lessness, ‘alienation’ and psychological
insecurity; that this may show itself
in
an almost emotional suspicion
of
being badly treated by management
and, more particularly, of being treated
worse than some other group; that
those who successfully press large
demands for pay or fringe benefits
thereby obtain, in these circumstances,
a significant measure
of
psychological
relief, satisfaction and security. This
thesis is not
so
different from at least
one explanation commonly given for
the frtquency
of
unofficial strikes in
this country.
If
it contains even the
elements of a correct or relevant
analysis, the authors of our current
incomes policy may well
find
it
significantly more difficult than they
thought to create a climate that
discourages those increases
in
money
incomes which are not also increascs
in real
incomcs
and which (given our
other policies) therefore harm our
balance of payments.
It
would seem
to be an essential step
-
almost equally
justifiable even
if
there were nothing
in Professor Hagen’s doctrine
~
for the
trade unions to concentrate on
an
early and significant increase in the
number of their (paid or honorary)
officials in the field who are trained
to promote the discussion
of
their
members’ economic problems in
primarily economic terms.
Finally, Professor Hagen expresses
some surprise at the frequency with
which British planning discussions
and institutions arc formally of a
tripartite nature, thus making
employers and unions seem almost the
Government’s equals.
This
is in effect
a reminder of the dangers inherent in
going too far beyond a willingness
to listen to and take into account the
volunteered representations of major
interest groups, in policy matters, since
this may risk inhibiting government
action until at least the acquiescence
of
those interest groups has been
formally secured: for, once
a
standing
consultative body is set up, its advice
is
politically difficult to ignore
-
even
when it is,
on
occasion, given from
a
very partial or sectional point
of
view.
This danger may seem remote at
present, but the price not only of
liberty
at
one end of the scale but
also
of
governmental effectiveness at
the other
is
eternal vigilance.
The Israel volume concentrates on
the unique combination of social,
political and economic circumstances
expericnccd by that country and
seeks to explain how, in those cir-
cumstances, its first attempt (in the
early
1950’s)
to set
up
comprehensive
85
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
planning machinery resulted
in
little
more than the preparation of better
and more comprehensive statistics.
Particular facets of economic life and
physical development continued to
be
‘planned‘, in the authors’ ter-
minology, by the Israel Government,
but it was not until
1962
that
the
country was ready to set
up
and
give full governmental support to an
‘overall’ Economic Planning Authority.
In
the particular Israeli conditions, the
rate of growth would not appear to
have suffered unduly from
this
delay
One lesson for both countries, to
be derived from
these
studies,
is
that
some institutional arrangements which
work perfectly well in some mixed
economies and at some
periods
could
nevertheless do more harm than good
if
they were blindly copied at other
times and places, or were given
inappropriate
tasks
in an inappropriate
context.
MARTIN
RUDD
Univevsity of Manchester
The
British
and
their
Successors
By Richard Symonds. Faber,
1966.
Pp.
280.
36s.
In
watching the process of decoloniza-
tion in many parts of the world the
author has speculated ‘how far a
pattern can be traced, and to what
extent the British had applied or
ignored the lessons, real
or
apparent,
of Indian experience in West Africa
and of West African experience in
East Africa’. The present volume is
a
study of these questions and an
attempt to answer them in relation to
the transfer of administrative respon-
sibility
from
British
to
locally manned
civil services in the former colonies.
It
surveys British policy toward
localization in India, Ceylon, West
and
East
Africa.
It
includes
also
a
comparative sketch
of
the policies of
the French and Belgians in Africa, the
Americans
in
the Philippines and the
Dutch in Indonesia.
There was very little
formal
or
official attempt
on
the part of the
Colonial Office to study and draw
guidance from India. Indian experience
in civil service, as in other matters,
was carried
to
Africa
by
the interest
of
individual officers or by the few
I.C.S.
officers appointed to the colonial
86
service or used for investigational or
advisory work. The general belief
in
Africa was that Indian experience
taught that the process of localizing
the colonial service,
as
of
handing over
a
colonial government, must be
a
lengthy one and that
it
should follow
a
slow
and natural process. This meant
that local officers would join the
service at the bottom and progress
like their expatriate colleagues by
normal promotion, until in due course
they would fill the majority or all
of the posts, including the senior
ones. Localization is closely related
to education. Indian experience of
education was believed to indicate that
the pat danger was over-production
and the creation of
a
class of educated
unemployablos. The unlimited spread
of education also seemed to have
brought considerable lowering of educa-
tional standards and over emphasis
on
literary studies as opposed to the
practical and economically more
valuable agricultural and technical
studies. These general beliefs were to
some extent reflected in the policies
of the Colonial Office and colonial
BOOK
REVIEWS
governnients between the wars and
later.
In dealing with the influence of
education on the success of localization,
the author probably does not lay
sufficient stress on the length of
the history
of
education in the different
territories. In India, and at least
on
the coast
of
West Africa, the history
of
European contact and
of
European-
type education is
a
long one. The first
mission schools were established in the
Gold Coast in
1818,
and there
wcrc
also early developments in Lagos and
Freetown. This not only provided
a
long tradition of education, but
also
meant that by
thp
middle of the
twentieth century there were inany
middle class educated families,
of
whom at lcast
a
number had two or
three generations of professional men
behind them. This gave maturity to
their communities and provided
inaterial for localization.
In
other
parts
of
Wrst Rfrica and
111
the
whole
of
East
and
Central Africa,
formal European type education did
not really begin until the twentieth
century. These territories mere at a
coiisiderable disadvantage ivhen the
call came for educated, mature man-
power. Something can be done to
overcome lack
of
a
long educational
rxperience in a young country, though
time is the only real remedy.
In
thcse conditions much depended
on
how realistically education plans were
related to the imminent needs of the
territories. There was much difference
in the quality of these plans.
After the war, and particularly
during the decade of the
~o’s,
it
became clear that the slow, natural
localization of the Indian Civil Service
would be inappropriate to Africa in
the general context
of
the post-war
world. The pressures outside Africa
for the early grant
of
independence
and,
to
a
lesser extent, economic and
political development and pressures
inside Africa, meant that the transfer
of
power and the nced for compre-
hensive localization of the services
would come sooner rather than later;
it
would not wait for natural processes.
Localization could only be sub-
stantially speeded up at the cost
of departing from the traditional
service rules and conventions. Pro-
motion by colour would replace pro-
motion by seniority, experience and
merit. When this came the service
would rcase to offer a career to the
expatriates. Mureover, traditions
of
the services, disturbed in this way,
might not survive iiito the post-
independence period when the servicc
would have been largely localized,
and when
it
was hoped that exceptional
methods would be abandoned
and
sound
practices restnrcd.
When
excep-
tional measures were introduced ex-
patriates would begin to leave in
increasing numbers
and
reliance
oil
local, inexperienced people would
inevitably grow, perhaps more rapidly
than the services could sustain.
The
choice
of
the time to introduce
exceptional methods
was
vital to avoid
breakdown.
In
countries which moved to inde-
pendence
first,
compensation schemes
resulted in the too rapid departure
of
expatriatcs. 1-atcr schemes were
designed to encourage some to leaye
early and others later, to spread the
loss over a period. This helped to keep
the rate
of
transfer under control and
give time for local officers to be given
some experience and training; and for
new expatriates to be recruited on
short-term contracts to fill the morr
difficult gaps left by the departing
professional officers.
It
was fortunate
that experience of the process of
transfer and of compensation schemes
in the more developed territories in
Malaya and West Africa was available
and widely used when more difficult
problems arose later in the less well
endowed territories in East and Central
Africa.
One basic difficulty in the localiza-
tion of the overseas service was that
the old imperial administrative service
enjoyed two functions:
it
provided
the administrative framework for
government;
but
in
fact
it
also was
87
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
the Government. Many senior civiI
servants held quasi-political posts,
such as Ministers. The process of the
transfer of power amounted to a
transfer
of
administrative control from
them to a local civil service, and
of
poli-
tical control from them to local poli-
ticians. In the atmosphere of this dual
exercise it was not easy to maintain and
pass
on the tradition of political
impartiality and independence which
exists in the British Civil Service.
It
opened the way also for a development
which has appeared in several terri-
tories in the early years of their
independence, whereby it was accepted
that the civil servant, far from being
independent of party, would in fact
become an active party member,
and be
as
much concerned with the
furthering of party interests as with
the administration of the country.
Some territories have become one-
party states. In these countries, state
has been identified with party and
party membership by civil servants
has been easier to justify and
is,
indeed, expected.
This book is a valuable contribution
to the historical background of the
problem of the civil service in the
developing countries and provides
useful bibliographies on each chapter.
It
is
a
compact and useful work, but
it
cannot be definitive at this stage in
all
its
judgements. Such a book will
only be possible when the many
relevant papers which are not at
present available become accessible to
the public.
GEORGE
CARTLAND
Fovmedy
Deputy Governor,
Uganda
Parliament as an Export
Edited by Sir Alan Burns. George Allen
&
Unwin,
1966.
Pp.
263.
37s.
6d.
A
popular misconception of current
political activity in some former
British overseas territories is of
its
failure to preserve the democratic
institutions and to maintain the
representative parliamentary systems
established during the period of
imperial control. More than one writer
in this wide-ranging book challenges
the
assumption that British rule over-
seas provided any clear prescription
for the growth of indigenous democratic
habits. The editor reminds
us
that
the
early Colonial legislatures were
modelled not on the British Parliament
as we
know
it
today
but
on the
English Parliament of Stuart times.
The challenge to the political leaders
of many newly independent countries
is
not the continuation
of
democratic
government (which few of them have
enjoyed)
but
the development of
88
political acumen and administrative
competence as indispensable aids to
the creation of fully representative
parliamentary institutions. There is
a
marked distinction between the
problems of government in these
countries and the stages of political
evolution attained in the older
Dominions.
The present book examines, by
retrospective and current references,
what appropriate resources are avail-
able in British experience
to
assist
the
establishment of new parliamentary
systems abroad, however they may
differ in both structure and procedures
from the ‘Westminster model’. The
authors’ contributions are uneven in
the quality
of
the writing and in the
degree
of
relevance to the subject
of the book. Some are largely descrip-
tions
of
parliamentary practices in
BOOK
REVIEWS
lhgland; others tend to blur the
distinction between fact and value
when stating conclusions about the
adoption or perpetuation
of
British
parliamentary methods overseas. Rut
some
of
the articles combine
a
healthy
scepticism about the limits
of
the
British contribution with
a
constructive
account
of
the measures adoptcd to
provide information
and
experience
of
those aspects
of
British parliamentary
procedure which can
he
of
immediate
assistance to the governments
of
new
states. This assistance, it
is
suggested,
may be most effective in the
com-
plicated task
of
drafting legislation;
in
the establishment
of
efficient par-
liamentary procedures (an illuminating
chapter describes the advice and
working experience offered to overseas
governnicuts concerning the key role
of
the
Fourth
Clerk
at
the Table); in
the development
of
understanding
about thc responsibilities of rnernhers
of
Parliament and the operation
of
the
party system; in clarifying the relation-
ship between Parliament, the political
party in office and thc civil service; in
determining what useful contribution,
if any, may be made by
a
second
chamber; in defining the proper rela-
tionship
of
Parliament to the courts.
There is also
a
deliberative chapter on
the prospects
of
an
increase in the
presidential system of government in
Africa.
The modern practice
of
law and
government
iii
Rritain, for which other
peoples
so
often express admiration
and respect, has evolved through
many centuries
of
trial and error.
Properly elective government, con-
stitutional monarchy,
a
responsible
civil service, the independence
of
the
court-these have been hard-won and
depend now on the social cohesion
of
a
fully literate society.
It
can hardly be
expected that such political affirma-
tions arid constitutional procedures
will flourish in soil that is not yet
prepared to nourisli it.
Of
the first
importance
for
Britain’s potential
relations with Commonwealth countries
in particular, is the determination
of
what features
of
her long experience
may assist other governments
at
particular stages
of
their political
and administrative development. The
authors of this present work, while
sometimes va.gue, often insular, in
their perception of the nature
of
other governments and their needs,
provide many practical examples and
helpful suggestions about the role
that Britain may still play in assisting
parliamentary development overseas.
Finally, in relation to this book’s
terms
of
reference, one contributor
has
a
particularly apt comment to
make. In rejecting any conception of
the British parliamentary structure
as
an orderly, tidy, inorganic system, he
asserts ‘the model whose export we are
considering has vague specifications
and sketchy blueprints.
It
is
a
method
rather than
a
system
. . .
it
is organic,
it
lives,
it
grows,
it
develops, some-
times in undesirable directions’.
It
is
from this kind
of
parliamentary
experience that Britain
has
to offer
whatever may be relevant to the
political experience
of
countries which
seek her assistance.
A
.S.LIVINGSTONE
Uniuevsity
of
Manchester
Social Administration
and
the
Citizen
By Kathleen M.Slack. Michael Joseph,
sgfjG.
I’p.
rGg.
45s.
Many students both in universities and only the vaguest ideas about the
other institutions
of
higher education subjects they are going to study.
embark
on
social science courses with Social administration is one of these,
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
and Miss Slack’s book is an attempt to
provide
a
general introduction to the
subject. She has adopted
a
rather
different approach from others who
have written this kind of book, and
instead of dealing with social services
one by one she has concentrated
on
the broader issues. This approach is
rewarding and the result
is
a
valuable
addition to the literature of social
administration.
Discussion in the opening chapters
identifies and examines some of the
conflicting ideas encountered when
one tries to define terms like social
administration, social policy, social
services and the Welfare State. Students
will find this illuminating, supported
as
it is by
a
wealth of quotations
and references. In the first place
the distinction is made between social
administration as
a
subject
of
study
and as
a
process.
The author then goes
on
to
explore the boundaries and
relationships of different subjects which
make up
a
social studies course, and
concludes that social administration
is
not ‘one more social science’;
it
is
an integrative study, demanding of
the student an ability to relate what
he is learning in other disciplines.
The distinctive feature
of
social admin-
istration is that it not only analyses
social problems but is also concerned
with their solution.
It
assumes that
this search for solutions
is
a
proper one
and therefore ‘ethical considerations
lie at the heart of social administra-
tion’. And it is none the worse for
that. However, this is not an excuse
for sloppy and slipshod ways
of
thinking, or for accepting slogans and
catch phrases without examining the
assumptions that lie behind them.
Discussion of social policy, in the
book,
illustrates this. Having asked what is
meant by social policy, the author
goes
on to challenge ideas that tend
to
be
regarded as self-evident truths.
She
shows
that social policy
is
not
necessarily beneficent and that policy
of
intent and policy in practice may
be very different. One can think of
illustrations other than the ones cited
-
90
for example, the declared polic,y of
community care, which for some people
turns out to
be
community neglect.
Later,
Miss
Slack considers social
services designed to meet human needs
and misfortunes
-
those arising from
the dependencies of birth, infancy,
childhood, adolescence and also those
concerned with preventing and pro-
tecting people from various misfortunes
in adult life.
A
great deal is packed
into two chapters and it seems to me
that this
is
the least satisfactory part
of the book.
So
much
is
compressed
into
a
short space that the material
is struggling to come alive and the
writer has to stop short when really
interesting questions crop up, although
they cry out for more detailed
discussion.
Examination of the use and misuse
of commissions, committees and
councils
is
valuable and has not
previously been attempted in this
way in an introductory study. The
chapter on ‘Avoidance of Conflict’ also
has some important points, particularly
in reference to the distinction which
should be made between ‘co-operation’
and ‘co-ordination’ within the social
services. We have got into the habit
of
lumping these together rather
like William and Mary. Here again
uncritical acceptance of catch phrases
is challenged.
A
neglected aspect of social admin-
istration which the author takes up
is
the problem
of
advice and protection
for the citizen.
It
is
difficult
to
convince
officials that confusion and bewilder-
ment does exist amongst the less
articulate about the services of the
Welfare State.
All
too frequently they
feel incapable of understanding
or
of
taking the initiative to sort out the
muddle.
As
Lord Shawcross com-
mented in his Preface to the Report
by Justice, ‘The little man
has
become
too uscd to being pushed around’. Thc
inadequacy of provision for information
and advice is underlined
in
the
book
and discussion then moves on to the
rights of citizens in cases where
disputes arise between individuals and
HOOK
REVIEWS
statutory authorities responsible for
the administration of social services.
To
deal with
a
complex subject like
this
in
a
few pages
is
almost an
impossibility and some
of
the general
statements could be misleading,
especially to beginning students. For
instance, in connexion with the
principle
of
openness in the function-
ing
of tribunals the following statement
irj
made (p.
’34):
‘Except in the
National Assistance Appeal Tribunals
they [tribunals] are now normally
held in public which safeguards the
principle
of
openness,
but
it is the
exception rather than the rule that
any member
of
the public attends
other than interested parties and the
I’ress’.
This does not make
it
clear
that there are important tribunals,
other than those connected with
National Assistance
(now
Supple-
mentary Benefits)
to
which members
of the public are normally never
a.dmitted, including Mental Health
Veview Tribunals, service committees
of
Executive Councils and the National
Health Service Tribunal. Very difficult
problems exist in connexion with the
a.pplication
of
the principle
of
openness
and
it
seems to me that some discussion
is
called for. In the samc way the
proposal to appoint a Parliamentary
Commissioner has to
be
dealt with
very sketchily
in
this same chapter,
arid there is not in my view adequate
exploration of the fact that complaints
by citizens against actions and decisions
of officials
fall
into two categories:
those in which the citizen
is
aggrieved
by
a discretionary decision although
there is no suggestion
of
maladmin-
istration, and those which do involve
allegations of official misconduct.
In attempting to cover
so
much
ground in one slim volume, Miss Slack
set herself
a
difficult task. She makes
it clear in her acknowledgenients that
the
book
is
intended primarily for
students. Not only will the student
find here
a
great deal
of
valuable
material,
but
perhaps more important,
he may be challenged to examine the
foundations of his own thinking and
to question some
of
his hitherto
unquestioned assumptions. There is no
room for sacred cows in the field
of
social administration.
KATHLEEN
BELL
Unzurrsity
of
Dwham
‘The
Politics
of
Financial Control:
The
Role
of
the
House
of
Commons
13y
Gordon Reid. Hutchinson,
1966.
Pp.
176. 27s.
Gd.
(cloth),
11s.
6d.
(paper).
It
has long been asserted by parlia-
mentary reformers that constitutional
safeguards devised in earlier times
to
impose parliamentary control on
I
he executive have in this century been
inverted, and now work to the
advantage
of
the Government in
its
relations with Parliament. Professor
Reid, the Professor of Politics
in
the
1Jniversity of Western Australia, in an
acute analysis of the financial pro-
cedures of the House
of
Commons,
brings fresh evidence to support this
proposition.
The book should be called ‘The
anti-politics
of
financial control’, since
Reid demonstrates that the traditional
techniques
of
parliamentary finance as
at present applied act in restraint of
the normal political process in the
House.
It
is
difficult to compress his
highly technical arguments; briefly
they are that the famous
S.O.
Sz,
which confines financial initiative to
9’
P
IJB
LIC
AD
MINISTRATION
the Crown,
is
now restrictively applied
to protect the executive from having
to justify
its
proposals in terms of a
wide range of alternatives, and that
Committee
of
the Whole procedures
prevent
a
wide political examination
of financial proposals, either because
of
the restriction on certain types
of
amendment in Committee
of
Supply,
or
as
a
consequence
of
the narrowness
of
Ways and Means Resolutions,
which are the basis
of
subsequent
financial legislation.
The thesis
is
neat, and well docu-
mented, although there
is
perhaps
rather too much reliance on the
obiter
dicta
of various nineteenth and
twentieth century committee chair-
men. Reid also strains his case some-
what by
bringing
in the old battle
over Money Resolutions, which has
largely been won. His conclusions,
however, are impeccable -that what is
needed is
a
new financial procedure
which takes
as
its
premise the fact
that the Gladstonian cycle of public
finance
is
now an automatic means
of
annually putting money
at
the disposal
of the Government which has little
relevance to long-term commitments
and expenditure plans. Approval
of
Estimates and the passage
of
Con-
solidated Fund Bills should be pure
formality; the House of Commons
should concentrate on untrammelled
debate, on party political lines,
of
thc
long-term issues, and the old controls
which are embodied in fossil form
in
the present financial procedures
should give way to the normal political
controls of publicity through debate
and post facto scrutiny by the financial
select committees.
On the revenue side, Professor Reid
draws attention to the peculiar fact
that there
is
nothing in the British
system of parliamentary finance that
can properly be called
a
budget,
in the sense of a procedure designed
specifically to consider a comprehensive
and basic annual financial plan.
Professor Reid will gain wide support
for the contention that
a
method is
needed
by
which an annual,
or
preferably longer-term plan, can he
considered both as
a
whole and
by
its components, with emphasis on its
implications for the rate of growth and
its
economic consequences generally.
He
is
also, unfortunately, correct in
his
judgement that the chances
of
reform in these directions are rather
slim,
a conclusion not unconnected
with his main theme that the present
financial procedures offer advantages
to the front-bench in Parliament that
are too important to be discarded
lightly.
S
.
A.
WALKLAN
D
University
of
Shefield
The
Development
of
Educational Administration
in
England and
Wales
By
P.H.
J.H.Gosden. Basil Blackwell. Pp.
228.
30s.
This
book appears at an opportune tion will find Dr.Gosden’s work of
moment. Normally
a
monograph on interest and relevance because
it
this subject would attract the interest provides the
first
overall survey of the
only of educationists. At
a
time when evolution from the beginnings up to
the future
of
local government is being the present time
of
the central and
considered
by
the Maud Commission, local agencies responsible for the
all
concerned with public administra- administration of the largest and most
92
BOOK
REVIEWS
costly
of
the public services.
I)r.Gosden establishes that it was the
absence
of
an
administrative frame-
work
as
much
as
sectarian strife that
delayed the provision
of
a national
system
of
education; he traces with
meticulous scholarship the haphazard
growth
of
unco-ordinated bodies. At
the centre, remote from parliamentary
control,
a
number
of
committees were
set
up, each with its
own
officers: the
Education Committee of the Privy
Council resulting in the Education
Office at Whitehall: the Department of
Science and Art at South Kensington:
the Charity Commission. All came up
against denominational organizations,
thcir officers and inspectors. Locally,
there grew up
an
even more bewildering
variety of agencies of which the School
Boards, School Attendance and
Technical Instruction Committees are
the most familiar.
Their consolidation at the beginning
of this century into the Board
of
Education and multi-purpose local
authorities was,
as
Dr.Gosdcn indicates,
an
administrative revolution
of
great
significance: the partnership then set
up between the state and local
authorities remains the basis
of
present
day administration.
One of the important features
of
this book is the insight it gives into the
formation
of
procedures. As everyone
professionally concerned is aware,
rcgulations imposing policy are made
by officials operating
on
a
skeleton
of
law. Many administrators will recall
that.
in
1956,
the West -Midlands
Study Group protested at ‘the extent
to which boundaries of control had
been advanced beyond what is reason-
ably deducible from the statutes
and
regulations’. This is not the first time
that the exercise
of
bureaucratic
control evoked protest: there is
abundant evidence from the original
records now availahle, and
so
expertly
handled by Dr.Gosden, that in the
ea.rly days of educational administra-
tion the confidential memoranda
of
a
senior official dctcrmincd policy. The
organization created by the powerful,
able and ruthless Secretary of the
Board, Sir Robert Morant, remains
substantially unchanged today. From
his minute (quoted in full by Dr.
Gosden) setting out the pros and cons
of
ad
hoc
bodies for education, the
attitude
of
the prime agent in the
abolition of school boards,
is
made
clear. Among his objections to such
bodies, one is of particular interest:
‘there
is
the mistake of getting together
a
lot of people whose sole (or main)
hobby is education and letting
a
body
of such folk have the run of the public
purse.
It
becomes
a
matter
of
“There’s
nothing like leather.”
. . .
Ordinary
common-sense restrictions, such
as
would be obvious to an ordinary
person, are wholly overlooked.
.
. .
All this is avoided, without any real
educational needs suffering at all, if
education is part of the ordinary
municipal purse.’ From his studies,
Dr.
Gosden is persuaded that education
might have been better served after
1902
if
it
had continued to bc entrusted
to
ad
hoc
bodies.
A
reduction in their
number might have proved
a
wiser
course than their destruction.
The present reviewer cannot recall
that during the recent discussions as
to which Department of State should
be responsible for universities,
it
was
ever pointed out that, for
a
brief
period (from
1914
to
1919),
the
Board
of
Education administered
univcrsity grants. I)r.Gosden notes
that Sir liobert Morant met con-
siderable opposition in effecting transfer
of
responsibility from the Treasury
and adds that ‘one
of
the first duties
of
the secrctary of the Universities
fkanch was to travel round reassuring
ruffled vice-chancellors’. Had university
grants not returned to the Treasury,
it is more than likely that a unified
system of higher education would
have evolved during the past fifty
years. Instead
w-c
have
a
fragmented
system
of
further and higher education
which has only recently crystallized,
and by accident rather than design,
into a binary system.
It
is
no
criticism
of
this instructive
93
1’
UB
L
I
C
ADMINISTRATION
and scholarly book to remark that the
chapters dealing with developments Act does not restrict access.
earlier period to which the Records
during the last forty years are less
illuminating than those relating to the
G.TAYLOR
Formerly
Chief
Education
Offuer,
Leecis
The Evolution
of
National
Insurance in
Great
Britain:
The
Origins
of
the Welfare State
By Bentley B.Gilbert. Michael Joseph,
1966.
Pp.
498. 84s.
Anyone who
is
interested in the
growth and development of social
policy must obviously make
a
study
of the evolution of national insurance
in this country
if
the maze
of
policies
which have since come into being are
to be understood. Most writers on
social policy, the social services and
more recently the Welfare State tend
to emphasize the significant part
played by state insurance, and of
course the Reveridge report, in shaping
our national pattern of social welfare
policies. However, until now, most
writers have been mainly concerned
with showing how national insurance
was
organized, to whom
it
applied
and of course the importance of the
principle of benefits in return for
contributions, but few have made a
detailed study of the pressures and
iorces exerted on the Liberal Govern-
ment before the scheme came into
being. We must therefore be indebted
to Professor Bentley B.Gilbert, of the
Faculty of History, at the Colorado
College,
for
undertaking this task.
He begins by examining the state
of the nation in the last quarter of
the nineteenth century with particular
reference to the problems
of
poverty
and the growing concern of social
reformers with the existence of ‘the
two
nations’. All of which
is
interesting
to those whose knowledge of nineteenth
century social history is limited, and
leads
on
to
a
more detailed exam-
ination
of
the health of children in the
early
years
of
the twentieth century.
94
For Professor Gilbert ‘the passage
of
the Education (Provision of Meals)
Act of
1906
and the Education
(Administrative
Provisions)
Act of
1907,
establishing medical inspection
in State Schools, marked the beginning
of the construction
of
the Welfare
State’.
A
point
of
view which would
certainly not
be
shared
by
all who
have attempted to trace the growth
and development of the Welfare State
in Britain.
It
seems
to
me
a
pity that the
sub-title ‘the origins
of
the Welfare
State’
was
added to the real and
justifiable title
of
‘The evolution
of
national insurance in Great Britain’,
because
it
is
when he deals with
non-contributory old age pensions
and national insurance that Professor
Gilbert adds substantially to
our
knowledge of the problems involved
in creating new social policies. There
is
indeed very little in this book
about the Welfare State
as
such,
but there
is
an enormous amount of
extremely valuable information
on
the
persons and pressure groups involved
in the evolution
of
national insurance.
The degree
of
scholarship and the
extraordinary amount
of
research effort
involved in examining the public
archives and the collections
of
private
papers are impressive. And
it
may well
be that Professor R.M.Titmuss
is
right
when he says in the foreword ‘that
Professor Gilbert has given
US
the
first
definitive history
of
“the new
philanthropy”
and
the
formation
of
nooR
REVIEWS
social policy in the early years of the
twentieth century'. Certainly anyone
who is interested in the evolution of
national insurance will find a great
deal of new material, well written and
of
absorbing interest in this book.
It
has
too
a
wider interest for students
of politics in that it
is
concerned
primarily with the pressurcs within and
outside Parliament which operated in
the years from
19oj-11.
This then is a book which can be
strongly recommended. Dcspite the
extraordinary amount of detail
it
contains, it
is
readable and well
presented, and for this reviewer at
least the footnotes containing short
biographies of the leading personalities
involved in supporting or attacking
the legislative measures proposed added
a human touch to what could have
been, but is not,
a
bare historical
record
of
complex political activities
leading to a major social revolution.
D
.C.
MARS
II
University
of
Nottinghanz
Housing
JVeeds
and
Policy
in
Great
Britain
and
Czechoslovakia
By Jiri M~sil. University
of
Glasgow Social
and
Economic Studies, Research
Papers
So.
2.
Oliver
&
Boyd,
1966.
F'p.
140.
40s.
This study attcmpts to compare the
methods of estimating the housing
needs in two countries, which have
many similarities in stages of economic
development, population structure, and
even in the extent of private owner-
ship of houses. The present housing
situations are compared on the basis
of
1961
population census data. This
comparison
is
of
interest, but
of
limited value as
a
means of assessing
housing needs since the census statistics
relate to household situations and not
specifically to dwelling conditions.
A
dwelling may be uncrowded, but
may still be falling down. An apparently
crowded dwelling in terms of persons
per
room
may be
so
converted as to
reduce room density. Houscholds per
dwelling and thcrcfore per room
are higher in Czechoslovakia than in
England and Wales (when the author
refers
to
Britain lie sometimes means
England and Wales, sometimes United
Kingdom -this is untidy though it
does not invalidate his general coin-
parisons). Czechoslovakia has rather
more households with central heating,
but less with piped water and fixed
bath or shower. In England and Wales
the highest proportion of dwellings
built before
1919
is
located in conur-
bations, while in Czechoslovakia they
are mainly in rural communities and
are relatively disperscd; and because
the number of people living in rural
areas
is
cither stabilized or decreasing,
the problem
of
their replacement
is
not
so
pressing as in expanding urban
centres. The emphasis on redevelop-
ment
is
therefore rather higher
in
England and Wales. Another important
difference
is
that in Czechoslovakia
housing is regarded as
a
social service
and
is
heavily subsidized. Statistics
of
house building and details
of
housing organization are compared.
There
is,
of
course, more private
building in Britain which
has
a mixed
economy and therefore
a
mixed house
building policy.
The author comes to his main aim
in Part
I1
of
the study where he lists
the important social factors in
estimating housing need:
(I)
changes
in the structure of settlements;
(2)
evolution of the family as a social
institution;
(3)
development of the
structure
of
the household;
(4)
changes
in
working conditions, leisure, etc.;
(5)
development of communal services
and shopping facilities, together with
95
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
a
list
of socio-psychological needs:
(a) privacy; (b) social contacts; (c)
space. He discusses the way in
which these factors are changing in
Czechoslovakia. However, estimates of
housing needs are
in
the end based only
on anticipated changes in numbers and
size distribution of families and
empirical standards of room density.
The author deals similarly with deve-
lopment
in
Britain.
Dr.Musil's study was undertaken in
1964
and therefore he is able to refer
only briefly to work which
is
now
going on in Britain to remedy the
shortage of basic information about
housing,
a
shortage that was high-
lighted by the Milner Holland Com-
mittee. Many local authorities are
now examining
this
problem much
more closely on the ground by sample
physical inspection of dwellings as
such to assess condition, conversion
potential, probable life, amenities,
etc., complemented by household
surveys to provide
a
basis
for estimating
trends in household creation and the
economic pressure on housing.
It
is
no criticism
of
the author that his
study has been much overtaken by
events.
His
account of experience up
to
1964
is
workmanlike and includes a
useful bibliography.
It
will be valuable
for teaching purposes.
B.BENJAMIN
Directov
of
Intelligence,
Greatev
London
Council
Psychological
Tests
By
Edgar Anstey. Nelson,
1966.
Pp.
300.
63s.
There are not many
of
us
these days
whose lives are not affected to a
greater or lesser extent by psychological
tests. Those who served
in
the forces
during the war may remember the
rough and ready techniques by which
they found themselves classified; others
have taken tests as a part of a selection
procedure for
a
job and most have
faced, with their children, the agonies
of
the eleven plus.
It
can be confidently forecast that
psychological tests
will
be increasingly
used in the years to come, yet most
people know very little about them
and much of what they do know is
based upon a mixture of misconception
and
a
fear
of
the unknown.
Dr.Anstey's book offers an oppor-
tunity for the relief of fear through
the growth of understanding and
is
worth reading for that sake alone.
But
it
sets out to do and achieves very
much more. There is
a
danger that
the increased
use
of tests
will
encourage
96
inadequate people to offer testing
procedures on
a
commercial basis
which are shabbily prepared and
dangerous in conception.
It
will be
difficult for the layman to judge the
worthiness of these products and
much damage may
be
done.
But
those
who take the trouble to read
Dr.
Anstey's book will acquire from
it
some
measure of the high standards that he
rightly sets for those engaged
in
test
construction and be able to enquire
sufficiently into the antecedents
of
the
tests that may be offered them to be
able to judge their value.
In the two respects
I
have mentioned,
this book
is
a
book for the perceptive
layman and may be read by him with
pleasure and with value, but
it
is
also
a
book for the expert, for the person
daily involved
in
the art and science
of
test construction.
Dr.Anstey brings to
his
subject a
wealth of experience from the armed
forces, from the civil service and
BOOK
REVIEWS
froiii industry. He probably knows
niore about psychological testing and
modern test construction than any
other man in this country.
In
the
central pages of the
book
(and these
the layman will almost ccrtdnly have
to skip through) he deals in great
dctail and clarity with the important
statistical techniques related to his
subject including several that he
has
dcrdoped himself. This
book
thrrefore
becomes the working manual
for
all
those operating in this field and brings
together in one place the most sound
and practical thinking that can be
wished for.
Finally, the
book
is both enhanced
arid embellished by a foreword by
l’rofessor
Sir
Cyril Burt,
a
doyen
of
professors and the patriarch of
psychological testing in this country.
Sir Cyril Burt says in his foreword
~
‘So
other book,
I
fancy, contains
so
judicious and
so
comprehensive a
review
of
existing procedures’.
It
is
right that
lic
should have the last
word.
U
AV
I
D
B
R
A
S
I
H
K
-C
RE
A
G
€I
Company
Educatzoia
O$cer,
Hawker
Siddeley
Dynamics
1
td.
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