The Globe. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1875.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 219, 20 February 1875, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1875.

A morning contemporary has been calling attention to the financial prospects of the province during the coining year. It has been pointed out that the revenue will show a great falling off compared with that of the last few years, and that there must be a consequent reduction in expenditure in many needful works. No one expected that the splendid revenue with which the province has had to deal during the last two years, was going to continue. But we have got accustomed to a princely expenditure, and when only a few paltry hundred thousand pounds are at our disposal, we begin to think we are getting hard up. The prospect makes us naturally inquire, have we been expending the sums at our disposal of late in an economical and prudent manner? We are certain such has not been the case. To begin with, the manner in which the vote to Road Boards has been squandered in many instances, is a disgrace to those concerned. We have heard again and again of money being wasted in forming roads which will not be required a hundred years hence, and which, when the money had been expended, were far less fit for traffic than before the ground was touched. Contracts have been let at most extravagant rates, for no earthly reason but because the Boards had so much money at their command which they were determined to expend. The same style of princely extravagance may be noted in all departments of the public service. Any stranger visiting the various public offices of the Provincial Government cannot fail to be greatly struck with the enormous army of officials which are required to administer the Government of the province. The amount of red-tapeism displayed is perfectly astonishing, and the labor expended is altogether out of proportion to the work done. We have no hesitation in saying that several mercantile houses in Christchurch, conduct a far more extensive business, and turn over a much larger capital yearly than the Provincial Government does, and yet one-tenth the number of officers are not employed by them. When our revenue has all been expended, of course the pruning knife will be applied ; it will be found that the most rigorous economy must be practised, and the expenditure of every sixpence narrowly watched. Provincial Government has been shorn of many of its former powers, one after another of its duties has been usurped by the General Government, but notwithstanding its reduced functions, all the ceremony and extravagance of former days are kept up. We believe that a Provincial Government of some kind is necessary to the good government of the colony, but it must be shorn of much of its inflated proportions, if it is to stand the test of hard times and reduced revenue.

Yet while all this wasteful expenditure has been going on, many most urgent works have to a great extent been neglected. One consequence, and a natural one of the rapid increase of population, has been an increase in the number of criminals—an increase with which our gaol accommodation has not kept pace; our prisons are overcrowded, and, notwithstanding the large addition lately made, they must be largely added to, at an early date. As winter approaches those seeking relief from the Charitable Aid fund will increase, not, we believe, fro n lack of employment, but as the neces* aary coueequeuce of accident and mis-

fortune in a rapidly increasing population. It would be a thousand pities, too, if the Education vote has to be greatly reduced, just when a little liberal nursing is required to place it on a sound footing. All these evils which are coming on us, might easily have been prevented, if wise and prudent councils had prevailed in the days of our prosperity. Those who urged cautious expenditure and the saving up for a rainy day, were laughed to scorn. But after all, they showed themselves the best friends of the province, and to them we will again turn in the day of adversity, which is surely coming.