The Hawke's Bay Times, Published every Monday and Thursday. MONDAY, 9th JULY, 1866.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 8, Issue 392, 9 July 1866, Page 2

The Hawke's Bay Times, Published every Monday and Thursday.

MONDAY, 9th JULY, 1866.

“KULLIDS ADDICTUS JUEARE IN’ VERBA MAGISTBJ.”

GENERAL GOVERNMENT ECONOMY (?) Uniformly, since the acceptance of office by Mr Stafford, we have endeavored to accord him our support. We have given him full credit for his intentions in respect to reducing the cost of government, and have not scrupled to award our approval of his expressed intention to introduce a wiser system of taxation than that at present in vogue. With much pleasure we regarded the gradually increasing stability of his Government, and thought there was reason to hope that the Colony would for the future be better and more cheaply governed under his leadership than has hitherto been the case. True, there has been some symptoms from time to time of an unsatisfactory method of developing his system of economy. In pruning the luxuriant tree he has undertaken to train, he has been lopping off some of its fruit-bearing branches, and at the same time negleciing the suckers which drain it of its vital fluid. He has in a great degree impaired the efficiency of the public service by a false and foolish cheese-paring economy, which, after all, does not, and cannot contribute to any large extent to the wished-for result of reducing current expenditure, and he seems to have neglected the true source of economy which lies before him in curtailing the vast sums devoted to keeping up a spurious loyalty among the native race.

His paltry economy in robbing the stamp sellers of their trifling commission hitherto allowed upon the sale of postage-stamps, has entailed a vast amount of inconvenience upon the public, and additional labor and trouble on the various postmasters, &c., throughout the Colony—a class of people, if we may judge from the state of affairs at Napier—who were already often overworked, and did not need that this additional labor should be thrust upon them. But perhaps the inconvenience suffered by the public from this cause, though quite sufficient to be a serious ground of complaint, is as nothing compared to that occasioned by his ceasing to employ the columns of the public press as the medium of conveying important notices and necessary information to the public. From this source it is quite possible that something considerable may be saved; but if even so, at what a cost; only at that of a fearful sacrifice of efficiency and public convenience, so much as to be most severely felt and complained of by the whole community.

For the future it will be in vain for the public to seek in the advertising columns of their newspaper for the information hitherto supplied to them through this channel. Indeed, such information will not be as heretofore brought to their notice in any such way, but will have to be sought after by hunting around the doors and walls of public buildings, such as Court House, Custom Houses, Post Office, &c, &c.—if perchance there may be any matter of importance to the public, when, if they are adepts at the deciphering of illegible manuscript, they may chance to learn what the Government has to impart to them. A favored few, indeed, may gather some of this information from the Government Gazettes ; but it is only-in the hands of a very few that these most valuable publications fall, and amongst that few a much smaller section accords them a perusal. We believe that editors are almost the only parties disconnected with the Government that read them at all.

We clip from the columns of a Wellington contemporary a communication bearing on this question, which shows a little of the trouble suffered by some through the illadvised and false economy of the new Premier, and we know that this is but a solitary instance out of many where serious loss has resulted from want of information that should be supplied through the columns of the periodical press.

It is not without much regret that we feel compelled to record our views as above. We had hopes that Mr Stafford would have been able to carry the approval of the whole country with him in hrs endeavor to conduct the government of the Colony with less expense than has hitherto been the case ; hut it would seem that his action is little more than a pretence, calculated to prove that efficiency must he sacrificed if economy is practised, and so by impairing efficiency end all clamor for economy.