The Dominion. MONDAY MAY 30, 1910. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RE TRENCHMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 829, 30 May 1910, Page 6

The Dominion. MONDAY MAY 30, 1910. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RE TRENCHMENT.

The danger that the Government, relying upon a good revenue for the current financial year, may put fully into practice the Prime Minister's idea that economy in Departmental expenditure is no longer necessary is a very real one.. In order thai, the public muy appreciate the character of the Government's dealings with the problem of retrenchment, we take this opportunity to place on record some extracts from the Prime Minister's speeches and from the leading columns of a local Ministerialist journal, in order that the public may see clearly in what estimation its intelligence and its memory aro held by the Ward Administration. The extracts need only a word or two of comment. The outstanding fact that is bodied forth in them is the extraordinary. difference between the reasons given a year ago for a policy of retrenchment and economy and the reasons now given for tho abandonment of that policy. The first set of reasons is based upon an argument which is still valid: This argument was thus presented in what is generally regarded as the Government's official newspaper on January 19 of last year: The Government has caught the spendthrift infection, and . . . has proceeded with an expenditure which cannot be sustuined without detriment to tho community. New Departments have been instituted, new works undertaken in all parts of the • country, with, the result that huge staffs of State employees ' have mounted up enormously, to the palpable embarrassment of those charged with the uiln'inistratioh of tho country. - . . . There is, in fact, scarcely one branch of Uio Public- Servico in which abuses have not grown up in the fat and careless years, which can be remedied only by a searching and fearless eraminution precedent to Ihe weeding out of a host i.f drones arid a general rehabilitation on l.rac.tical business lines. The task is a thankless and unpleasant ono, but it has cot to be faced, or, rather, the longer it is neglected the worse it will be for .the iepntations of those upon whom the responsibility devolves.

In a speech al Upper Hutt on April 2 of last year the Prime Minister said (we again quote from his own journal): It is easy, of course, for criticß without my responsibility to declare that the Departments liavc been overmanned. During a lons period of prosperity- a tendency in that direction naturally exists, and practical men recognise it as virtually unavoidable. The rapidly increasing business in the vaiious branches of the Public Service calls from time to time for an increase in the number of employees to mcot the extension caused by the growth of trade. This applies especially to some of the newer Departments. The time has arrived when the public demand had been to a lnrijo extent mot. i£ not UYOMupplted.

I His newspaper three days later said this:

The Prime -Minister .... has not denied that the Service is over-stalled. On the contrary, lie has stated most emphatically that the Departments have Leen over-manned. In another article on the same 'day the same newspaper ■ referred to "a system of dropsical Departmental officialdom" and "superfluous officials." On May 8, 1909, at Invercargill, the Prime Minister said:

Though our actual consolidated revenue for Iho year is .£215,072 above the amount of the increased expenditure, still I am not satisfied witii the way in which our expenditure, both for permanent and annual appropriations, is mounting up. I feel, with the grave responsibility upon my shoulders, that a reduction in' our annual expenditure must bo made.

These extracts show that if the Prime Minister and his friends were sincere, retrenchment was necessary for two reasons: (1) Because the Public Service was over-stalled and wasteful; and' (2) because efficiency could be maintained despite a wholesale contraction of the Departments. It was not suggestedthat the retrenchment scheme was due simply to the slump in revenue. In fact, the arguments used were quite independent of the revenue movements. But what do we hear now from the Prime Minister and his friends? That retrenchment is no longer necessary—a contention to support which they have to repudiate all that they said a year ago. At Winton on May 5 last,'the Prime Minister said:

Twice in my term of office as a Minister of the Crown the affairs of the country have called for retrenchment in the Public Service, am l upon each of these occasions the same causes that have led to retrenchment in the Departments of State have simultaneously called for widespread retrenchment among business institutions in the country also. . . .

I am very glad to be able to say that in consequence of the greatly improved condition in the public finances of the y Dominion, and the still better prospects for the present year, there is, ill my opinion, no further necessity to retrench in the public services of the country.

And the journal which a year ago frankly admitted that the problem bf. retrenchment was a proolem in the cutting-off of waste, in the removal of "abuses" that have "grown up in the fat and carelcss years," in the cure of the "spendthrift infection" caught by the Government, had this to say on May 7 last

Anyone can understand a commercial, firm'whoso shrinking transactions warned them of a bad year deciding to adjust their wages book to the altered conditions. Common prudence .would compel thorn to do this, for manifestly since the trade was falling it would not bo necessary to employ so many wage-earners as before. But in the event of their business growing instead of showing the retrograde movement looked for, can it bo supposed that sane individuals would feel themselves bound as by an oatii to beat their expenditure down to tHe figure agreed upon . . . P We hardly think so. . . . The Government found itself very much in the some position.

The public may be trusted to draw the only possible conclusion from these conflicting statements. AVe need only point out in conclusion that,-in his speech in Invercargill in May of last ycar s the Pkiiie Minister felt the "grave responsibility" resting on him' in connection with the increases in the cost of government, and said a reduction in expenditure was necessary, even "though our consolidated revenue for the year is £215,672 above the expenditure." He said a few weeks previously that the expenditure could be reduced without impairing the efficiency of the Public- Service. To-day, though the consolidated revenue is only £247,339 above the-expenditure, his "grave responsibility" seemingly has departed, and he announces his intention to return to his old ways.