Government Appointments.

Manawatu Herald, 28 April 1894, Page 3

Government Appointments.

jng article in a recent number of the <$aterbury Press:— "The Govern- ' i ipent in all the appointments they bare made, have acted anblushiogly on the American system) and spoils

to the victors is their accepted creed. Pome of their Justices of the" Peace have rioted in the streets and appeared in our Courts, not on the bench but on the floor. Others of them have had to be ignominiously struck off the list within a few weeks of their appointment for the shadiest possible land transactions. An official of the Land Department turned out on inquiry to be a gaolbird. How m.uch longer will the public tolerate this shameless disregard of decency ? And even where the characters of officers have been beyond reproach, their competency has, in a majority of cases, been open to the gravest doubt. Professional agitators and lamp-post demagogues have received Government inspectorships— perhaps because they were too lazy to do a day's work themselves and preferred a billet where the work is ' put out.' Purely ornamental and utterly incompetent young men have been pitchforked into cosy corners in ' the great wooden building, simply because they were brothers or brothers-in-law, or nephews or cousins in the fortieth degree of a Cabinet Minister. And this is what they call the government of the people by the people.