Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 56, 6 March 1877, Page 4

Tbe Milleuiura (says the Post) must be close at hand, when we find a Governor of a British Dependency voluntarily returning £2000 of his salary to the Colonial chest. This is what has been done, and for the second time by j the Governor of Fiji. His pay is £5000 a year, and he has handed back! £2000 of that sum to relieve the shortened means of the colony over which he rules. Here is an example of patriotism and self sacrifice which we can scarcely hope will find imitators. We are always talking about economy in New Zealand, and the necessity of retrenchment in its public service, but somehow or other nothing practical ever comes of the talk. Supposing we had a Governor imbued with sucb a spirit of self-abnegation and devotion to the weal of New Zealand as to cause him to return £2000 a year of his salary, what great results in the direction of. retrenchment might be achieved. Ministers could not, for very shame's sake do less than pay back £500 each per. annum of their emoluments, and even members of tbe Assembly — so powerful is the influence of a virtuous example,— might consent to stint themselves in the matter of their honorarim. A reform thus commenced at tbe top of the tree could not fail to take effect far downwards. The Legislature having afforded a heroic example of selfsacrifice, could with some show of justice carry out a system of rehenchment and reduction in the civil service, and so in the end great would be tbe relief the taxpayers. We fear, however tbat we are speculating on w_a • i. practically impossible of realisation. In public life in this colony tho universal , creed is "to get all one can, rmd i lpok for more." Acting upou this principle, most of our public men wiil regard the high principled and selfsacrificing act of bir Atthur Gordon, tbe Governor of Fiji, as a pieco of u_paralled and fatuous lolly. Aod above { all, Governors of British dependencies and colonies everywhere, will be horror strtcen at Sir Arthur Gordon's conduct and the dangerous pieaedeut which it establishes. We can .fancy our own moat noble Marquis elevating his eyebrows when he reads tbis announcement, and, with an emphatic shrug, ' declaring " that Sir Arthur, always eccentric, has now become as mad as a hatter." A Worcester mother having occasion to reprove her little seven-year old daughter for playing with some rude Children, received for a reply, "Well, aha, some, folks don't like bad, company, I dl^ays did T'