The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1887. RETRENCHMENT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1723, 30 November 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1887. RETRENCHMENT.

The report of the Parliamentary proceedings which appeared m our issue of yesterday will have informed our readers that two Government Bills, framed with the object of giving effect to their retrenchment proposals, have passed their second reading. These are the Governor's Salary and Allowances Act Amendment Bill and the Ministers' Salary and Allowances Bill. The former is a short measure ot three clauses, and provides for the repeal of the third, fourth and tenth sections of the Act of 1873, and that the " Establishment allowance"' and the " Travelling allowance " provided for m those sections shall cease to be payable, and all expenses incurred by the Governor for all or any of the purposes mentioned m the third and fourth section shall be paid and borne by the Governor out of the salary payable to him under the said Act, with the exception of the annual salary of the Clerk of the Executive Council. The Act is not to come into operation, if ii obtain the Royal assent, until the assumption of the Governorship by the person next appointed to be Governor of New Zealand. In other words, the present allowance for the Governor — salary travelling allowance ;£iooo, and for maintaining the Governor's establishment, total — is to be reduced to which will figure as the Governor's salary. Any future Governor of the colony will have to maintain his establishment and pay all his travelling expenses out of this salary. This at first sight seems a large piece of retrenchment, but y& do not believe that it will prove any economy at all. In the first place it will do no small amount of injury o the prestige of the colony, and will result m our having second or third rale men appointed. We believe that true economy lies m having first class men and paying them well. Then again there will be any amount of items on the estimates for travelling expenses and other purposes, which will -bring the amount really paid to pretty nearly that payable, under the present Act, and we shall have a second or third rate instead of a first class, man as Governor. The Ministers' salaries and Allowances Bill reduces the salary of the Premier to a year, and that of other Ministers to : travelling expenses from two guineas per day to thirty sbijlings, and increases the house allowance from to It also provides that if th£ number of members be reduced the number of Ministers shall be reduced to six. In this measure we only take exception to the item of salaries. We do not believe m the cheese paring policy of cutting down salaries. We believe m having good men and paying them well, and considering the vast amount of work that Manfcters have to go through— 1 work, too, of no ordinary description — the position they have to wainta^ ?nd the expense of living for three or four months m Wellington, we do not consider that the present salaries are at all too high. We do not want for Ministers men to whom p£Boo would be a perfect God-send — mere political adventurers — but we want men of standing and ability, and if we go on cutting down salaries m this manner we shall have none of the latter and too many of the former to our great detriment.