WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 February 1922, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

CIVIL SERVICE RETRENCHMENT. STILL PROCEEDING. SPECIAL TO GUARDIAN.

WELLINGTON, Feb. 20 The Prime Minister has furnished to the newspapers another set of figures, prepared by the Public Service Commissioner, showing that the authorities are keeping the need for economy steadily in view and making reductions in expenditure wherever possible. Mr Massey again finds it necessary to explain, however, that the economies will not lie brought to account.for some time yet. “The full effect of the retrenchment which has already been arranged” lie says, “will not be felt- for nearly another year, but much good work lias been done, the finances gradually getting into a sound position, and it is intended to have the whole of the details ready for Parliament when it meets in June.” Meanwhile the critics ol the Governnifcnt, not necessarily unfriendly, are complaining that the unhappy taxpayer is afforded no prospect of early relief. “Nearly another year,” they point out, may mean some date after the general election, and so leave the whole question of retrenchment to be a burning issue between the parties during the political campaign. HARD ROW TO HOE. In any case the Prime Minister has an extremely hard row to hoe and the more chivalrous of his opponents are

not withholding their sympathy from him. But the Fates are not so kind. The Tutaiiekai was sent out the other day to do lighthouse duty in Cook Strait, to take a case in point, but for the sake of economy the officer that works her wireless apparatus did not accompany her. Now comes the news that the schooner Valmaria is on the rocks some nine or ten miles west of the Spit lighthouse, and though the Government steamer is thought to be in the neighbourhood there is no way of communicating with her. Her wireless apparatus is intact, but there is no one capable of working it on board. The inevitable “I told you so,” is writing to the papers declaring the situation to be the result of economy run mad. The incident is unfortunate, of course, and the Tutanekai is not likely to go to sea again without her wireless operator; but probably no one would have complained had not thle unlucky schooner come to grief while the steamer was at sea.

STATE TRADING

The Welfare League, adopting the

American slogan of “more business in Government and less Government in business,” is demanding an overhaul of the various State trading departments by independent experts, and will have the sympathy of a great number' of practical, observant people in its efforts to obtain a hearing from Mr Mass'y and his colleagues. The Prime Minister prcjiared the way for such a campaign iu his last Budget when he admitted that certain State services were Doing carried on at an annual loss and insisted that these services should be hilf-supporting and conducted on a proper business basis. But Mr -Massey’s acquaintance with the position at G at time probably was not so con pne-

. usive as it is t -day. His study of the report of the Economies Committee and the representations made to hiui from independent sources must have satisfied him that it would be quite impossible to make all these services self-supporting and that few of them, if any, are' conferring any real benefit upon the community. His experience and observation of the last month or two must have enlarged his knowledge of a good many matters to which he previously had given little attention. A WIDE FIELD. The Prime Minister was referring, of course, to the State coal mines, the State tourist resorts and the other State undertakings which enter into competition‘with private enterprise, and had not in his mind the State post and telegraph offices, the State railways and similar services that are accepted as national institutions in this country, though there -is no reason at all why even these should not he conducted upon a proper business basis. But when Mr Massey really tackles the problem he has propounded for himself lie will have to look into the position and tendencies of municipal undertakings as well as into the position and tendencies of State undertakings. Thle question of leaning on the public is involved in the one case as much as it is in the other, since municipal undertakings escape land and income tax just as State undertakings do, and to this extent are a charge upon the Consolidated Fund for the benefit ot only a section of the people. That city tramways, for instance, should be exempt from’ local rates seems reasonable enough, but that they should be exempt from State taxation is quite a different matter.