THE CIVIL SERVICE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 458, 4 March 1867, Page 2

THE CIVIL SERVICE.

(Nelson Examiner.) If we were asked to point to any one evidence which, beyond all others, showed the absurdly of our New Zealand Civil Service as at present arranged, we should uhesitatingly turn to the elaborate Report of the Civil Service Commission. The appointment of such a Commission at all may by looked upon as a strong proof that someth ng was felt to be wrong even by the Government. This, no doubt, was the case to some extern; and perhaps it is even more true that Mr Stafford felt that the thing must produce mischief if his Government did not at least appear to do something. The work of reforming any department is not a pleasant Work : and it is not oard to understand how a politician shrinks from an attempt at a sweeping reform of all the departments of a Government at once. As we have said before, there were between 1,500 and

1,600 officials directly interested in ivsnintsjnirifr thimra as fhsir bibm - i ■ - o ’ o' ” "" v “-‘ -i it is not too much to sijr.nnsp. that aa C K of these had many friends. A sweeping reform entering into the work and position of such a mass of officials as this could hardly fail to be a dangerous step io any Minister, and certainly could not at ail fail to be a very disagreeable one. The' present Premier escaped the difficulty by appointing a Commission. No doubt he might have done a bolder and a more manifestly advantageous thin" for t.b« p.nlnnv than # “ O* '■ ; - e - - - I OUM \JH t» vUlvlul vi the results, we can not but think that, properly understood the Commission was-a “Very good thing. The Civil Service Commission of 1866 consisted of four gentlemen. One of these was the Auditor of the colony, an office which he has held, we believe, ever since there was an Auditor; a second was the Under Secratary of the cdony, who, in like manner, may be s iid to have stood by the cradle of our Civil Service; a third was the Inspector of Customs for the colony ; and the fourth, a gentleman invited fiom a neighboring colony, brciuse he knw a good deal about G. v*;rnment Civil Services. At first sight, it is natural to blame the Government that made these appointments. It has been said there was something of the grotesque in commissioning people to report upon their own shortcomings and sins, and that in etfet this is what was done. It has been urged th it Dr Knight, as the head of one department of his service, and Mr Gisborne, for many years the head of another, were not quite the best men report upon the Civil Service, of which they are essentially a part. These gentlemen could hardly be expected to discover suddenly that they had been taking the lead in a system of waste and inefficiency such as could not and would not be tolerated in any mercantile employment for a week. They ceuld not be expected to declare thet they had petitioned for the multiplication of clerks to carry out a vicious aud roundabout system in a slothful and expensive manner. All this has been urged, and tiuly urged against the Commission, and most certainly it did not belie expectations so reasonable. This may seem the culminanating point of the evil to some ; but to as it seems to afford the clue to the mystery. The Government was not more stupid than other people we may be sure, aud the Report did not take Mr Stafford by surprise. It remains for the public to draw from it the moral which the whole thing was so well designed to teach in an unmistakable manner. We have said it would have been a bolder, perhaps a more worthy course, for the Premier to have himself examined the evil of the system of our Civil Service, and to have pointed out its remedy; but the effort would have been laborious, and would have involved a good deal of hostility to himself. But to make men their own executioners, to make these heads of the departments display the legitimate results of their own system which they had built up and fostered, that was a safe course, and, strange to say, it seems to have proved an easy one. Unsuspectingly these heads of departments set about their task, and with an alacrity which might with advantage be applied to ordinary public business, furnished a Report which, properly understood, ought to be recognised as the death-warrant of their system.

The object which the Commissioner!* set before themselves in this Report was principally to “ take a general view of the existing Civil' Service of this colony, to suggest principles for its re-organisation, and suggest means for effecting considerable savings, without impa?rlft^ ! Us efficiency.” This object Jhey have attained by a comprehensive 'View of the salaries paid to the Civil' servants of the Government, with a very decided recommendation that they should be largely increased for the most part! They see that, in 1865, nearly never seems to strike them that the sum is a large one. They are soliciting about the social status of the Government clerks, and they exhibit ah occasional anxiety for lightening the labors of some particular department; but it never once occurs to them to suggest any practical mode by which the tremendous burden upon the

4 public purse, caused by these regiments of clerks, might be lightened. The Report begins by a review of salaries, showing that they are generally too low ; it goes on to the suggestion of various ways by which something more of formality—a little more of distinctness from any ordinary mereautile system—may be introduced and fostered; and it concludes by suggesting that any alterations must be very gradual indeed; and that in short, we must wait till the present officers die before ws try to make any considerable changes. In 1865, the accounts of which year were before Commissioners when the Report was t made, the salaries paid by the Govern meat amounted nearly £194,000; in the following year, these were more than £298,000; and iu the present year, they will be more than 200,000. These facts must be borne in mind if we would appreciate at its true value the Civil Service Report of which we have spoken. I

We have sn?eested an explanation of the composition of this cninmissici, and if this was the true one the Government may congratulate it&elf upon having d ne its part, if not to reform at lea®t to show the need of a ref tui The beads of the Civil service have reported that, in effect, (he system would be perfect if only its dork® felt a little less like clerks aud a litile more like officers, and if only they were more highly paid, and ma le on the whole nvre comfortable. Is it possible for the public to put any construction upon this but one ? Can they look ou such an exhibition as this Report without seeing how utterly effete and useless a system must be, the heads of which are so Wind to the true position of matters ? We speak strongly on this subject, because it is one to call for some strong action. We see the colony ground down by a taxation confessedly unpa ralleled ; we see the yearly increase •of our burdens more than matched by the yearly increase of our extravagant expenditure—which, likewise, is unparalleled in any pan of the world—am! we find no notice taken of a Report which, proceeding from ! he chief clerks j of out Government offi.-es, recommendmeasures leading direct to greater use | lessness, and greater expense in the departments. If this goes on, it i-j useless to talk about economy. The present rate of the increase in our ex-] penditure upon salaries seems to be be-j tween £5,000 and <£6,000 a year ;j and no doubt, when the recmniuendii-j lions of the Civil C ervice Commission have time to work—by increasing sa I laries and lightening the labots of the! departments it will require an increase of something like £ll) ; 000 a-year to satisfy the cravings of this monster of expenditure. But, as we have said, we think the Report a very valuable one. If the public will only look af it, they will learn many a lesson ; if the Government will only consider it carefully they may see dimly at least, foreshadowed the form of that Civil Service Commission, which an overburdened colony must soon demand.