The Editor, Sir:

I have read the instalments of your articles on the permanent secretary flowing out of Dr Davis' comments on the civil service.

As a retired public servant, I looked for the word 'calibre' as the touchstone in the whole issue and never found emphasis on it.

Let me remind you that calibre was most evident among those who guided the embryonic ministerial system into delivery. Men of the calibre of John Stanley Mordecai, Edgerton Richardson, Earle Maynier; Vincent McFarlane, Laurence Lindo and Vincent Courtenay Smith.

These men then passed on their efforts to B.St.J. Hamilton and James 'Jimmy' Lloyd. None of these men was afraid to say, "No, Mr Minister, it cannot be done that way."

They were succeeded by men who carried on that tradition of saying "no" in the persons of Walters of Youth and Community Development and Mowatt of the Ministry of Labour and 'Bobby' Mason; before them all was G.H. Scott, adviser in the Ministry of Labour.

The public sector underwent a total sea change after such men, and ministers in the 1960s were allowed to run ministries as their fiefdoms.

I am, etc.,

MIDDLETON WILSON

middletonwilson@bellsouth.net

Miami, Fl.

Via Go-Jamaica