CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 153, 28 June 1880, Page 4

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

TO THE EDITOK OF THE "EVENING MAIL." „ Sir— l was very glad to see you taking exception to the . report just published on the ; Civil- Service of New Zealand, and crave space to say. a few words myself. .We" did not want a Royal Commission to r inform us that the Civil Service had become a s terrible scourge to the country, or that there had been much waste and squandering " in all departments of the Government, much less did we want a Royal Commission to recommend the pitchforking of station clerks, regardless of ability or fitness, into the position of traffic managers. If there is one redeeming featnre more than another in the mismanagement poor New Zealand has been subjected to, it is /the excellent manner in which the railway department has been conducted as, regards the safety and security to life' and limb which the public . have enjoyed under it. Whatever else the Government have wasted, they have not wasted human life, and this sense of security is of paramount importance, and the services of the men who have conduced to it are beyond price. But if the erode suggestions of ffie Commissioners (who admit they have done nothing well and much badly) are to be carried into effect, and the large number of men forming the quill-driving class are to be relied on for furnishing recruits to drive our ' engines and fill the highly responsible posts of traffic managers, &c, in place of the ex-

perienced and competent men who now fill them, why these accidents will become, the order of the day, and the revenue from railways will decrease as public confidence is destroyed. Adam Smith says: " Tho subjects of every State should contribute to the support of the Government as near as possible in proportion to their respective abilities." When, Sir, the people of New Zealand see it is to their interest to insist on the revenues of the colony being raised on a sound principle like this of Adam Smith's, there will be no need for the noisy and empty cry we now hear so much of for retrenchment, for then the people who had the spending of the taxes would have to find their fair share of them out of their own pockets, and not, as is now the case with our legislators who raise the revenue in the shape of taxes on tobacco, tea, sugar, and beer, in fact on anything or anybody but themselves Just taxation is the one thing above all others the people of New Zealand should agitate for. Economical Government and Civil Service reform (neither "ruthless," nor "cold-blooded," but just) will follow as a matter of course, and will never come without it. I am, &c, Waimea Settled.