RETRENCHMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 873, 20 July 1910, Page 6

RETRENCHMENT.

One of the most interesting paragraphs in the Financial Statement -is that which is headed "Retrenchment." The sequence of events in connection with the Government's singular experiment in this new and uncongenial field led us to hope that the Prime Minister might have a good deal to say on the matter. There have been several stages in , the proceedings. There was first a continuous and angry tempest of denial, during the election campaign, of every suggestion that the public service was over-manned anp! run on wasteful lines. The election safely over, the Government began to hint at the necessity for removing the wastefulness that it had previously d.oclared was non-existent. Then the Prime Minister formally announced that he had devised a retrenchment scheme that would save £250,000 per annum. The subsequent months, so it is claimed, were devoted to the carrying out of this scheme, and at the end of the financial year the Prime Minister declared tha.t retrenchment was no longer necessary. Ho claimed, at the same time, that he had saved about £100,000. Upon this, as our readers will remember, wo analysed the figures and showed that the Government had effected no, real 'saying at all. Our analysis Vas reproduced and 'supported by leading newspapers in other centres, and neither the Government nor its newspapers ventured upon a reply. Now we have the Budget, and the few lines referring to "retrenchment" consist, in effect, of nothii.g but an amazing mis-statement and a repetition of the assertion that the retrenchment season- is over. We give this section of the Budget in full:

Very great savings have been effected in the jjublic service not only by dispensing with tho services of many officers, but in other ways resulting from the amalgamation of Departments aud enforcement of economies wherever possible. The duty of retiring many old public servants was a most unpleasant antl painful one. It was on? that hail to be faced, however, and tho results are very important to the taxpayer. Over ,£300,000 per annum has been saved to the country by the application of the retrenchment system. The improved condition of 'things and the growth of the business of the different Departments resulting therefrom make further retrenchment impossible without seriously impairing the efficiency of the public service.

When the Prime Minister speaks of "very great savings,", he is speaking quite at random. We doubt whether anyone takes seriously even his general claim, and as to his more explicit assertion that the savings amount to £300,000 per annum, we can only wonder what has become of his sense of responsibility. He appears to imagine that he need do no more than say tho first thing that comes into his head. Tho best reply to his claim that he has saved £300,000 per annum are the figures which show that he has made no such saving, and his estimate of the Departmental expenditure for the current year. When he took office the Departmental expenditure (1905-6) stood at £4,252,233. For the year'l9o9-10 it stood at £5,466,095, an increasu of £1,213,W5. foi 1910-11 he estimates a further increase of £178,265. If his idea of saving £300,000 is to spend £178,265 more than last time, then wo can tell hini that it is nobody else's. There is really, no reason, of course, why anybody should be surprised that Sih Joseph Wabd, at the first sign of recovery from hard times, should ..docido to abandon ovon tho

pretence ot economy. Economy is quite foreign to his temperament. No doubt he will give the House a long lecture irpon the reasons why retrenchment is no longer necessary or possible, but the general public will be unlikely to pay much attention to him until he has supplied that return giving the details of the retrenchment policy for .which Mr. Hbrdjmn has given notice of motion. We suppose it is useless to expect the Prime Minister to believe our word that retrenchment docs not mean the act of saving sixpence with one hand and losing a shilling with the other, but means a long and continuous . process of waste-elimination. But in saying so we have the support of an eminent authority who said in 1894 that "retrenchment, to bo effective, must go on continually." That sound maxim i= in direct conflict with Sir Joseph Ward's assertion that retrenchment is no longer necessary or desirable. And the author of that maxim is— John Ballance.