ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 871, 7 December 1853, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, December 6, 1853. Sir, — It does not appear that the present Government are in any great hurry to bring forward the Estimates, or to give the public any information of the value they — the advocates of reform and economy — set upon their services. But though the desired information is not officially vouchsafed, it has somehow or other got abroad, and I beg to hand you a list of appointments and salaries as posted up to date in the estimates according to public report, which in this instance is believed to be tolerably correct. The Superintendent £750, Provincial Secretary £400, Legal Adviser £300, Speaker of Council £200, Chairman of Committees £100. There you have them all — Reformers, members of the Constitutional Association, clamorous for economy, — on an ascetiding bcale, each Patriot with his price, ticketed like the flash goods in a fancy shop. But will the Independent members of the Council consent to such an appropriation of the public money, will they allow these men, who, not content with the ordinary revenue, like Oliver asking more , want to do a little in the borrowing line, and are very anxious to raise a' Loan — if they can — will they allow these men, I say, to pocket the public money in this fashion? And what wilL the electors, ,who are crying out for roads and public improvements, say when they see the way the money goes, how dear they are like to pay for their whistle, and what Representative Institutions are to cost them on the most Patriotic and Economical principles ? Truly, Mr. Editor, as Sam Slick says — "there are quacks in politics as well as in medicine* — critters who have universal pills to cure ' all sorts o' diseases ; and many's the constitution, human and politick, they've fixt atweenthera;" — and the settlers are in a fair way of finding out the .fix tHey are in, and no mistake. „ - I am, Sir, ''\ Your obedient servant) - ' AN ELECTOR"