The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2580, 25 May 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1871.

The work the Provincial Council has b; fore it is by no means an agreeable one. It is in many respects that of reorganization. Most of our departmental arrangements have been provided to meet contingencies ns they arose, and, in consequence, they can hardly be expected to dovetail so into each other as to form one piece of smoothly-working machinery. But however difficult it may be to simplify it, the work will have to be done. Pew people were satisfied with the report presented by the retrenchment Commission last session. In fact, it is a subject that could hardly be expected to be dealt with intelligently by persons wholly outside the Government service. There must not only be a theoritical but a practical acquaintance with what is required, before a just balance mi be struck between the work to be done and the number of people requisite to do it. Even the most careful inquiries cannot supply minute information. Thus, for instance, several men termed messengers are necessarily employed in the various offices, but that term does not describe accurately the work they each perform. In addition to the functions proper of such an office, one for instance has the charge of a large suite of rooms, each of which he is required to keep in order ; and as many of them arc used for different purposes, sometimes through long hours, the work he does not unfrequently requires instead of eight {the recognised period of labour) eighteen hours labor daily. In other grades of the service, similar exceptional cases are to be met with, and these cannot be known to any save those intimately acquainted with the working of the Civil Service. While, therefore, the labors of the commission are valuable as suggesting many improvements in system, they require much elaboration before they can be practically worked out. There is always difficulty in this respect with every government. Sudden changes are very apt to induce confusion. This is found to be the case in private establishments where unity of purpose prevails under one presiding mind, but is invariably the consequence of change of system under a government. No matter how simple its arrangements, thtre is a certain routine through which every transaction must pass, before it is completed in such a way, that the manner in which, and the reason why it has been done, can be recorded so as to be available in answer to enquiry. It is quite possible that red tapeism may be carried to excess. That it has been so in Otago, there can be little doubt. We have not the slightest hesitation in saying that our expences have been far too great in proportion to our income, and that division of labor has been carried to such an excess, that it has been necessary to create work in order to keep some of the employes out of mischief. This has been especially the case during our past two years of stagnation. The per centage upon our income of the cost of government has been necessarily enormously greater than when our circumstances were more prosperous. To this point the attention of our present Executive has been directed patiently and perseveringly since they accepted office. It is at all times an unenviable task to reduce expenses. Nobody likes it. Those who have to dismiss servants who have faithfully done their duty, feel it equally, if not more keenly than those who have to seek other modes of obtaining a likelihood, and there is always this difficulty with a person who has been some years in the service of a Government —he has lived a sort of hermit’s life, and to a certain extent hidden himself from the world. He is debarred from taking an active part in the business of life. If he is known to have bought or sold on his own behalf or anybody else’s, some minion of a newspaper contrives to twist the transaction into a sign of corruption in a department, and therefore when his connection with the service ceases, he has to begin life afresh, and to enter into competition with men well up in the necessities of the time. Very rarely docs one who has been many years in a subordinate position in the service of a Government attain distinction afterwards. It is therefore painful to have to dismiss public servants, and executive heads of departments usually shrink from the task as one that invariably creates more enemies than it secures friends. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, with each their hundred friends, make common cause

against the Ministry that has the temerity to face such a nest of hornets, and they marshall all the interest they can muster in the Council and out of the Council in opposition and revenge. We pity Ministers whose strong sense of duty imposes such a task upon them.