A REFORM IN THE CIVIL SERVICE NECESSARY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 460, 11 March 1867, Page 2

A REFORM IN THE CIVIL SERVICE NECESSARY.

(Nelson Examiner.) It may bo objected to the remarks that we have made on the subject of our Civil Service and its vast expense, that wo have suggested nothing except that what wo now have is very expensive and that wo can ill afford that expense. Even this, wo maintain, it was well to do, oven if wo could do no more. It is certainly , well to know when expenditure is extravagant; it is even more important to know mat our means are not equal to the drain upon them ; and if we have convinced anyone of these two things we have contributed something towards a reform- Rut we go farther than this. We assert that the abuses of our Government are things not only to be pointed out and grumbled at but to bo amended. This colony is a very young one as yet. Its mode of government is not yet a stereotyped thing; its abuses have not yet got so firm a hold upon us that we cannot, if we are bent on doing so, shake them off. What is needed is only an intelligent idea of the evil in all its magnitude, and our politicians will soon discern that it is not for them.to find difficulties, but rather to llnd the way out of those difficulties of which the country has grown only too keenly conscious, la appealing, therefore, as we now do to the common sense of the people at large—in asking the question of them. Whether they tuiuk it can be necessary to maintain regiments of clerks, and to spend hundreds of thousands a-year in paying them? wo really make our appeal to the politician* of the colony, and we think it is a sort of appeal which they will all understand. Let the public only show that ic Knows of the abuse of which we complaiu, and the politicians must open their eyes to them also, and begin to make some efforts to get rid of them.

In spite of this, however, we are not willing so confine ourselves to the mere suggestion of the evil of our administration. We have said a good deal about the vast expenditure and overgrown proportions of the Civil Service, and betoro leaving this part of our subject we shall brief!) indicate one or two modes fay which we think some reform might be effected* Before wo conclude our survey of the financial arrangements of the Government, we may have occasion to suggest changes which, if carried out, would do much more than mane merely small Baring in departments, by the absolute demolition of some ol them altogether , in the mean time, however, we shall not enter on so large a question. And, in the first place, the "Report of the Civil Serrioa

Commissioners leads direct to one consi deration. An elaborate comparison is there instituted between the salaries of Government officials aud those of mercantile and banking firms. This is, no doubt, a useful table as it stands, but we cannot but think it would have added greatly to its value if a comparison had been made bet ween not only the salaries paid, but] also the work done. This is not a pleasant theme on which to speak, but we do not see that we can follow the example of the Commissioners fay saying nothing about it ia this place. It is. to be remembered that the work of the civil servants of the colony is connected for the most part with the collection and expenditure the year. The transactions are large ones, therefore, and it would naturally give employment to many clerks. .But it is not true that they are large beyond the analogy of other businesses. There are mercantile firms that do quite as much work, and that deal with far larger sums of money in a twelvemonth than the civil aervants of New Zealand. Of course there are a good many peculiarities in a Government service which have a tendency legitimately to increase the work ; but we assert that an allowance—an ample allowance—may be made for these, and yet we shall find that no such difference in the work will appear as ought to account for anything approaching to tlie actual difference of its cost. An utter stranger’s first impulse would be to suggest that perhaps the system was a bad one, and that possibly the servants were too much inclined to take it easily. We think a nearer acquaintance with the facts would go to confirm the stranger in both these impressions. The system on which our public offices is conducted is one of the most intricate circumlocution. Let anyone try to get an answer to a very eimple question from any one of the Government departments, and it is ten chances to one that be waits some weeks for his answer; that in some shape or other his question and its reply has passed through at least a dozen hands, and has borne a startling crop of memoranda, queries, and notes. This is perhaps the simplest illustration of the mischief, but there are others which are well known throughout the colony. The regulations, for instance of the Treasury, to which we referred not long ago, are the most w-on-derfully intricate machinery extant for creating work and increasing official pa tronage. The way in which the money is passed backwards and forwards from office to office and from hand to hand, affords a specimen of official legerdemain more than rivalling the well-known tricks of thimblerig and other humours of Greenwich Fair. Possibly, the intellectual exercise of discovering where money ought to be found at any given time in the Government chests, may afford a pleasing amusement to the heads of departments in Wellington in their hours of leisure ; but we are very sure that if the colonists only knew how largo a proportion of Use cost of departments was owing to work thus produced, they would feel inclined to remove ■this pleasing gratification out of their reach. As tor the question of the amount of work dono by the Government clerks, the public already professes to know something about this. The expression, “Go vernraent stroke,” has obtained a toler ably strong hold of the public mind, and ia familiar in the public mouth as household words. Nor is it a mere phrase without some good foundation. Government officers, as a rule, work fewer hours and work in a more leisurely way, than other clerks. Work from ten till four each day, with plenty of time fop lunch, -and no very severe reprimand for late attendance in the morning, these, it must be confessed, are conditions which go far to account for the existence of a good manv -officials to do but little work. Let any merchant in the colony be a ; ked to take a thorough-bred Government clerk—wo beg pardoc, we should say officer —into his employment, and by the way in which he would decline the offer, some idea may be formed of the character of the school afforded by our Civil Service.

To all this the answer may be made. But what would you do with the existing officials ? The question is a difficult one, no doubt, but, in the interests of the colony, we see only one answer that could be given to it. We would reform where that was possible, we would dismiss where it was not. Government officers are not more stupid than other men by nature, we take it; and when they found that the •old state of things had passed away they would generally learn to accommodate themselves to the new. In any case the .country ought not to suffer. It might be necessary to get rid of many old officials, and in onr opinion their pensions would be well spent money. In any reform of departments the main thing to be insisted upon would require to be absolute thoroughness. A little of the old leaven would soon corrupt tho whole, whether •hat leaven was in (he sv«tem, or in the way it was carried into practice. Have we no statesman able enough to set on foot this good work for us ? Kone who is willing to bear the brunt of the odium attached to it for the sake of the colony ?