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Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 75, 2 March 1885, Page 4

The following remarks upon the enervatiri'g effects of Civil Service employment m the States, which we clip from the. * Detroit FreePressJ are not wholly inapplicable to this 'country :— lt must be borne m mind ! that an enormous proportion of the government work is clerical work of the lowest grade, and m all the inferior positions, commands a higher price than the outside market. The government pays 900dols for work which m an open market would not command more than 450d015. It is estimated that among the whole I] , rOOO officeholders m Washington only about'Tiincty receives about tJ, OOOdols a year. The inferior employes are overpaid and the superior

employes underpaid. One of the greatest drawbacks to putting young men m these government offices is that the work being so simple they learn nothing, and as the human mind either advances or retrogrades these young men generally go down | hill from the start. Extravagant pay for infantile work, with abundance of leisure and every temptation to toadyism, is generally enough to ruin the "best material. When a young man applied to Chief Justice Chase once to get him a position, he replied : " Til give you half a dollar to buy an axe to go to work with, but after having ruined two or three promising young men by putting them m Government offices, I have no mind to ruin any more."