VIEWS OF THE WEEK
Now for Reform
From SARAH GAINHAM BONN
THE cries of triumph and disaster have died down into the jumble of voices resolving_ diverse demands into a government coalition; perhaps too the complaints from abroad that the German voters should have elected the Social Democrats to prove their democracy, whether they wanted a socialist government or not, will disappear under comparisons with long runs of one party in other countries whose democracy is never doubted. It is noted in Bonn that, in spite of the great victory, the governing coalition now has fifteen fewer seats in the Bundestag than in 1961 and the SPD thirteen more. So we foreigners need not despair: Federal Germans will wake up in four or eight years' time and find that the vaterlandlose Gesellen have crept 7 on them in an election night at last.
But for the next four years Federal Germany gets more of the same, as the Spectator discreetly forecast before the election. More of the coalition wrangling as well; for though the Bavarian Christian Social Union and the Free Democrats notice with displeasure that they now have the same number of seats in the House and are there- fore only in positions to checkmate each other, they do not change their tactics. Chancellor Erhard now has a mandate from the people in- tead of a heritage from Konrad Adenauer; he can decide on his own programme as the Con- stitution prescribes.
The basic reform needed is that of finance. None of the urgent reforms can be carried out until fiscal and appropriations policies are simpli- fied and re-allocated. This Federal country lacks even a liaison committee of Federal and Land authorities using public money. The railways, refugees, agriculture, transport, the post, housing, social services, culture and education, they fight each other without co-ordination or priority and who shouts loudest often wins, it seems.
The reality of the oft-quoted provisional nature of Bonn is contained in the patchwork complex carried over 'for the time being' from the old German princely states in local affairs, from the Empire, from Weimar and even, in some centrali- sation, from the Nazis. That the thing works at all is the real miracle of Germany, and it seems it will not work much longer. Many laws and still more settled habits are at odds with the Consti- tution, perpetuated by obsolete social and educa- tional arrangements. Elementary education is so neglected twenty years after the destruction that many junior schools still work in shifts for lack of buildings and teachers. Higher education is so incompetent, slow and short of money that specialist doctors are in their middle thirtieP before they start work and young men of twenty still sit in high school trying,to pass their univer- sity entrance. The effects on the future of tech- niques and even more, on the sense of responsi- bility of thousands who have homes and growing families before they have ever earned a penny and who are accustomed to being supported half by the state and half by their wives, frighten responsible people, but nothing is done.
The care of mothers and the highest infant mortality in Europe are a disgrace; obscurantism 6ontinues to prevent decent contraception and hygiene (even information on birth control ap- proved by the Church is forbidden) so that juvenile disease increases and only the knowing know what to do about birth' control. This leaves an enormous but only guessed-at number of abor- tions as the only alternative for the majority. The education and skill-training of millions of girls who will continue to work most of their lives, babies or not, is neglected and what is done is frustrated by obsolete parental habits 'of thought, especially in the classes where women have always worked and always will work.
Local authorities are heavily and increasingly in debt, often for things forced on them by national policies, such as roads and drainage for the immense building programmes, but the sub- structure is often almost primitive outside the towns. Millions still go to refugees who have been integrated for years and who, if they are not settled, will hardly succeed after twenty years. Even the male apprentice system, the model of Europe, is straining under the demands of modern industry. The lack of young technicians strains the labour market and prevents the rationalisation and mechanisation that would relieve the man- power shortage. That the country is in fact well- run is due to the rule-bending of every authority; the whole life of Germany rests on a foundation _nearly always somewhat at odds (and often com- pletely So) with what people actually do.
To reform finances' or anything else there is needed an agreed policy in the cabinet and firm agreement to stick to it in the House, as well as the collation of information and a scale of priorities. Reforms also need a rearrangement of the work of the ministries. Ministers are heavily over- worked and much is done by higher civil servants who thus become, if they were not already so, political appointees. This means that not only politicians but administrators too are immobil- ised before every Federal and provincial election, The inherited German reliance on 'experts' is turning into what may be the weakest feature of American government—the political nature of civil servants and local government officials who change with governments. The answer, often de- bated, is Parliamentary State Secretaries or Minis- ters of State in the major ministries.
Even more imp,ortant than the administrative functions of such posts would be the education of
political neophytes; the gaping hole in German politics is a responsible younger generation whose attainments are known and whose ceilings can be assessed. A good example of the usefulness of side- effects in government was the post-war insistence of the trade unions that a worker should sit on the board of every company employing more than five workers—but not in the way it was conceived. Doubt that the unionists could affect company policies was justified, but they have in practice become an effective liaison between men and management which partly accounts for Ger- many's industrial peace. Parliamentary secretaries would both help ministers and'stimulate them by their pressure from below; the system would en- gage the energies of younger men who now have little' to CIO' in parliament but intrigue. The effects in the Bundektag standing committees, on both coalition and opposition members, would be im- mediate and healthy. It is important, more in Germany 13erhapS than elsewhere, to encourage the enjoyment of responsibility based on attain- ment rather than on the aura of an office, for this enterprising virtue is rather lacking in Germans, largely owing to their old-fashioned systems of educalion. The advantages of such posts seem obvious in Britain, but there is much opposition to them here, mainly legalisms based on the vested interests of the `experts.' One way to resolve the demands of the time parties for jobs would be to cut down the number of ministries by reorganisation and to decrease the number of ministries which carry permanent cabinet seats. This would have the added advantage of being popular with the public. Several .posts are now vacant, including agricul- ture, social affairs and labour, justice, health, and probably finance—the key job for reform. The Ministry for Affairs of the Federal, Council (liaison with the upper house) and the amor- phous job of Dr. Adenauer's friend Krone are both in question, and so are Posts and Transport. There is thus ample room for manoeuvre by Dr. Erhard in the two weeks before the new Bundestag meets. '
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