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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3033, 16 March 1881, Page 2

Mr Batkin and Mr Seed, who navy be fernied the commissioners of the Civil Service Commissioners, proceeded to Gisborne by the Albion on Sunday evening, e.rrived there on Monday morning, and left again for Napier that afternoon. The few bours expended in Poverty Bay were no doubt most beneficially spent, but to the ordinary mind it may occur that they could not have investigated the several Government departments at Gisborne so as to form a very correct idea a 9 to where economy could be applied. Tnese commissioners' commissioners have now been travelling round the colony at some little expense to the country, and it will be interesting to learn some day as to whether the cost will be covered by the economy or efficiency effected by their labors. In tbe meantime it may be asked, what do these gentlemen do when they are actually in the offices of their respective departments? It strikes us that if two semi-heads of departments can be spared for such a length of time as these commissioners' commissioners nave been absent from their legitimate work, the propriety of an enqui y into the utility of the country retaining their own services might as well engage their attention as anything else. We have no desire to make unpleasant remark*, but it appears to us that if a score or so of highly paid and for the most part ornamental officials were (jot rid of a truer economy would be effected than in docking the miserable pay of the underlings.