LITTLE ECONOMIES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 481, 14 April 1909, Page 6

LITTLE ECONOMIES.

Tee lot of the Cabinet Minister in this country is not a particularly happy one just at present.- Accustomed to reply in the affirmative'to the innumerable seekers after grants from the public purse, Ministers are now under the unpleasant necessity of saying "No" almost every clay in the week. Indeed, their case is harder than even that: they are not only compelled to refuse the requests of the. unfortunate people who have come to regard the State as an automatic dispenser of doles and conveniences—they have oven to take away existing privileges and perquisites. The very latest of these acts of economy is Dr. Findlay's decision to close up the liokitika Gaol. For many years this institution has been assailed as a particularly choice example of the extent to which the rest of the country was made to pay for the benefit of the West Coast. Sometimes, if we arc not mistaken, the gaol was practically tenantless, but nothing would induce the late Mit. Seddon to rob Hokitika of the prison. That the prison was almost fabulously extravagant was counted as nothing when the wishes of the West Coast, and the West Coast's need of pickings, were concerned. But the West Coast is no longer to bo tho spoilt child of the country, and one of Dn. Findlay's first acts of reform was to decide upon the closing of Hokitika's precious gaol. We have no doubt that when tho news reached Wcstland it caused a storm of amazement and indignation like that which broke out in a public meeting at Hokitika a few years ago when the West Coast realised the full horror of the disgusting fact that the Government was actually going to try and collect the money owing to it for water on the mining fields. The Mayor of Hokitika issued a prompt protest against the proposal to close the gaol, but tho Minister for Justice has

turned a deaf ear to the cries of the West Coast. He points out that the prisoners in the gaol are so few that tlioy cost the State over £84 a head per annum, or just seven times as much as the net cost of keeping prisoners in the Auckland prison. There are other small prisons—none, however, so majestically expensive and parasitical as that at Hokitika—which are to be closed, and the Minister estimates that, apart from the gain to prison administration which will follow the drafting of convicts to the larger gaols and prison camps, he can effect an actual saving of some thousands per annum. It must have been hard to refuse to listen to Hokitika's appeal for a further waste of public money in its behalf. The "regret" with which Dr. Findlay announces his wise decision is not his recognition of any merit in the appeal; it is the natural pain of a humane man at having to thwart the wishes of a community which has for so long been spoiled by improper favours that it really believes that it has rights, and claims on the publie purse, of a kind not possessed by other districts. It is to be hoped that all the Ministers will take a firm stand against the continuance of the little jobs and favours created during the past dozen years'. There is not one Minister who cannot effect savings in this way, and if a really sincere attempt is made by the Government to remove all the sources of waste, in spite of the clamour of the districts which have profited ijy that waste, its efforts will meet with general approval. But there must be no half-hearted paltering with the position, and no discrimination amongst districts. The "West Coast perhaps stands most in need of a sudden weaning from the breast of the State, but there are abuses everywhere. Dr. Findlay is to be congratulated on having made up his mind" to shock Westland into realising that it must submit to the general need for economy like the rest of the country. We should like to think that all his colleagues will follow his example.