|
NEWS HEURES
It's finally been noticed!
Mr. Painlevé has received little but compliments for the initiative he took to regulate government work. The unfortunate thing is that he had to take it at all. The doubtful thing is that his effort will be understood and followed.
The current and temporary President of the Council wanted to apply his scientific method to the bad habits of political work. He must have been quite surprised by the discoveries this research led him to. Indeed, there is no organization more defective than the one that presides over the high management of the country's affairs.
Thus, the Council of Ministers, which is essentially the grand board of directors of the "Société France," deliberates haphazardly and according to the inspiration and whim of each of its members. An issue that concerns, for example, several ministerial departments is raised one fine morning by one of the interested parties without any of the others having been warned in advance and having had the opportunity to research the matter.
Much better, or even worse: there is no agenda set for these meetings. Any ministerial minister who attends the Cabinet Council or the Council of Ministers doesn't know whether the topic will be inflation, Morocco, or the weather.
Mr. Painlevé protests against these abuses; he wants to establish an agenda for meetings and have it prepared by the services of the Presidency of the Council.
He is right. But he probably didn't dare follow through with his thoughts or his courage. No one has heard that he has so far demanded that minutes be kept of ministerial conferences. And yet, what a reform this would be worth! For this incredible fact is true: When our ministers exchange views on the most serious subjects that will later become part of history, no regular or official trace of them is left!
Thus, it happens that, two or five years later, former ministers can freely discuss past discussions and the role they played in them; they can deny any part they took in a deliberation that was not crowned with success.
There are no commercial houses, no industry that could survive such a regime of laissez-faire, which reveals above all the fear of responsibility, the complete absence of solidarity between the government of the day and that of the day. Ministers come and go. The country endures and continues. It is the country that should be considered, not its clerks eager to shirk their responsibilities.
It may be said that secrecy must be guaranteed in matters of state. But don't we know that, for example, in the iron cabinet at the Quai d'Orsay, for certain conversations known as "verbal notes," there are perfectly written minutes that capture the substance of the most confidential discussions. Have these documents, essential to the continuity of a policy, ever been disclosed? No.
We must hope that Mr. Painlevé's still timid attempt to regularize the work of leaders succeeds. On the condition, however, that the reformer does not slip tomorrow on the orange peel that would sweep away his government, his reforms, and his hopes.
LEON BAILBY.
|
