Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 120, 1 June 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1863.

How the little difference between His Honor the Superintendent and Mr. Tiffen about the Treasurership is likely to be settled we are not prepared positively to state, but that it will be patched up somehow or other we make no doubt. But that is just the point. The public service of this Province has for so long a time been a subject for patching in one way or another, that it has at last got to be looked at, by all disinterested parties, as nothing else but a mass of .patches of all shapes, sizes, colors, and sorts, without reference to fitness, to utility, or in any way bordering upon that -which is useful, or upon that which people expect to get for their money.

The duties of the Treasury are not particularly arduous, and for a very sufficient reason. Where no money is to be kept, there can be no need of a person specially required to keep it. That, we apprehend, is a duty which should be considered as perfectly honorary. Yet still such is the wisdom of our rulers, that if we have not got a Treasury, we are nevertheless obliged to have a Treasurer ; and in order to meet this difficulty, seeing that Mr. Coleuso, in indignation and with short notice, went out of that office and left it, by consequence, a blank, His Honor comes down on an unknown gentleman named Janisch, and places him in the position of the receiver of the three mouths pay, which but for Mr. Colenso’s untimely retreat was allotted to that gentleman by his liberal brothers in Council, as a sort of pecuniary notice to quit. Mr. McLean has, we make no doubt, a great regard fur our young friend Janisch (but we apprehend that that is owing principally to J’s being a friend of ours), and in proof of the high odour in which that young gentleman stands with His Honor, that illustrious dignitary tried hard once upon a time to get J. into his Council. Now, we respect J. ; J. is a respectable party, and we have a keener regard for his astonishing abilities than he is probably aware of, and therefore we raised our little linger, and Heigh! Presto ! ! instead of J. going into the Council he was kept out, much to the grief of His Honor the Superintendent and to the mortification of Janisch. Young men and Superintendents don’t always know what is good for them. D. McLean has as warm a heart and as sound a head as any man going in Ahuriri, but he was wrong—very wrong—for all that, in trying to put young J. into the Council. However, Mr. McLean pours balm into our wounded friend and places him on the vacated pedestal of the fiery but methodical Colenso. In the meantime, while Janisch is revelling in the delights of the <£7s, payable in monthly instalments, and is also brought forth before an admiring people in the full glare and brilliancy of a Provincial Government Gazette as Treasurer, pro. tem., Mr. Tiffien holds on firmly by his determination not to be Treasurer, and for two, at the least, very sufficient reasons. Firstly, because”there is nothing in the Treasury but a few few large books filled with painfully legible records of the vast sums of money which were in days of yore in the Treasury, but which are not there now ; and secondly because, being a conscientious man, he feels that he has quite enough to do to keep matters in a state of disorder up in the Land and _he is not therefore anxious to undertake a second job until the one on hand is sufficiently well done, when he will, we make no doubt, having fulfilled his mission, retire amidst thunders of applause and with the most delightful complacency. What is to be done ? Under these dis-

tressing circumstances, what is 'to be done ? says His Honor to us. We regret to say that, under these distressing circumstances, we don’t know what is to be done. We fear that His Honor counted upon that little chicken Tiffen before he was hatched, and that he was rather disappointed at finding the egg addled.

Now, we in our turn ask His Honor what, under these distressing circumstances, he intends to do ? We have to say that we will not allow this little difficulty of the [ Treasury to degenerate into a job. Not a bit of it. Somebody must act as Treasurer ; and as there is, as we said before, nothing to treasure, and as there is no likelihood of that state of things altering, we will, with our usual liberality go bail for any body His Honor may choose to name as a fit and proper person to fill the vacant place ; but we give notice that we shall object to that fortunate party getting anything more than the honor of the thing, and a moderate quantity of beer to keep that honor moist. No work no pay—that’s our motto. While, however, we have indulged in a little jocularity in this matter of the Treasury, we are alive to the startling fact that it indicates blit too plainly the real state of the public service of this Province in particular, but more or less of the state of that service throughout the country. The present condition of the public departments is most disgraceful, and that state is a' serious matter laid at the doors of those who are looked up to and appointed by the people to remedy the evil, or at all events to stop the spread of the infectious disorder. The Superintendent amuses the Council and the Council amuse the people with all sorts of fine talk about the progress and prospects of Hawke's Bay; all of which we, unbelievers as we are, look upon as just so much garrulous twaddle; but we never heard a word, in the midst of this self-laudatory gabble, about the cleansing of the stable before the new team was put into it. No! no 1! that, tvould have been bringing matters a little too close home to some of our friends, and so it was not attempted. Short sighted policy that altogether. If Mr. McLean had come forward with some plan for the regeneration of the public service, or at all events for putting that service upon a better footing, we should have hailed him with a warmth and with a cordiality which would have put our sweet friend the Herald out of countenance. But no ! we regret to say that Donald allows the festering putrid heap to lie festering and putrifyiug still, but has made no attempt to remove or deodorise it.

However, whether the stench of corruption is worse now than heretofore we shall not at present say; but this we will say, that the Treasurership business does not appear likely to lessen the nuisance. There is probably not a place on the face of the earth where the public service is conducted in such ' a lax manner as in this Province. Until that state of things undergoes an entire revolution, we may dismiss from our minds any hope of Hawke's Bay making any move forward. Until jobbery goes out of fashion, and until incompetency is kicked out of the high places in the land, and the men who are able to do the work, where work has to be done, are put in to do it, and get well paid for their labor, we may rest assured that, although we should import half the natives of Germany and all the Jews, still would Hawke’s Bay remain a nest of jobbery, and still and for ever would our public service in every particular be as bad as bad can be.