The Native Department.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 25, 9 August 1887, Page 2

The Native Department.

Mb 8. C. G. Viokebs, late of the Native Department, who recently created some stir by revelations as to the internal working of the Native Department under Mr Ballance, and whose statements were contradicted by the Native Minister, returns to the charge in the Wanganui Chronicle, and reiterates his statements. He thus concludes his letter:—What would be the result if the whole department collapsed to-morrow ? Would anybody, European or Native, suffer any inconvenience? Not a bit: the few important land questions would be taken over by some other depart, ment, and matters that have been dragging on year after year would be settled in a few weeks. One reliable and experienced interpreter, such as they now have, and a clerk in charge of records, is all that need remain of the Native Office. It is well known that one clerk makes work for another, and when the permanent head of the department is drawing in salary and allowances from one source and another, nearly, if not quite, a thousand a year, he must, to keep up his own importance, have a large staff of clerks under him; hence we have the office increased from four officers to what it is now. I am told that the whole working of the office, and all the extraordinary payments made to certain officers, will be thoroughly inquired into, and the effect of this, I doubt not, will be the entire abolition of what has been spoken of in the " big building ” for the last four or five ears as a scandal to the whole service.