The Patea Mail. (Published Wednesdays and Saturdays.) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1879.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 483, 10 December 1879, Page 2

The Patea Mail. (Published Wednesdays and Saturdays.) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1879.

Now that the 4th of the month ami the few succeeding days hare passed, the mind of the public begins to turn again from the banker’s Sweating room to the kindred subject of Colonial taxation. The business man whose mind has been filled with his own cares sees in the colony another and a greater self, a fellow sufferer, and is almost moved to sympathy when he observes that there is a great difference between him and his partner in distress. The colony can, and will, pitilessly exact its money to the last penny. It gives no credit; men must pay before they eat and drink. But with him it is different; he cannot fall upon the solvent man for what the insolvent cannot pay; ho cannot make the laws under which his debts are collected; his customers must eat and may paybill afterwards.

Nothing is clearer than that the colony wants money, and must have it. Some means of raising it must be resorted to, and, whatever those means may be, they will be unpopular with those who have to pay. But, as we have before argued, there is no reason for making the means hateful to the people of the colony on any other ground than that of the amount,.to pay. Our point at present, however, is that money must be raised in one form or another, at some time or an other. There has been a great outcry for retrenchment. It appears that multitudes think that the deficit could be covered by saving from the public service. But let us enquire, bow, and where. By far the greater part of what is spent in salaries is absorbed by those who receive less than £2OO n-year. Every one must be acquainted with some good and efficient men whose pay does not exceed that amount, and who in any private offices would receive at least as much* Can any one, then, seriously propose to cut down the pay of these men ? Why should they be made to contribute £5 or £lO per annum to the needs of the country, by losing that amount of well earned pay ? Can any one suppose it would be just to make these men bear the burden of the country in a greater proportion than the rest of the community? Besides, who wishes to see the public service become a last resource for men who have failed in every other walk of life 7 This it certainly would become if its salaries did not bear some fair proportion to those given by private employers. The mass of the English army is the scum of the country—rilu-aways, ne’er-do-wells, loafers, and men afflicted with idleness. Men of a better stamp almost invariably leave as soon as they are able. What else could it be when the pay is considered? Who then wishes to see our respectable public service sink to the same level ? It is a miserable, bats-eyed economy that hires third-class man at third-class pay, and entrusts him with the public money. It is selecting the weakest character, and subjecting him to the severest temptation, But supposing that there were no objection to cutting down the pay of Government officers, how much could be saved by that process ? As we have observed, by far the greater part of the money paid in salaries goes in small amounts of less than £2OO a-year, and there are hundreds of cases in which the yearly salary is far less than half that amount. Wo leave it for croakers to judge how much can be saved out of pay like this. If £lO were deducted from such salaries in Carlyle, that sura would certainly be a grand contribution from this town to the Colonial deficit of nearly a million.

Among those who receive higher salaries than those referred to, there may be more room for reduction, that is to say, they could continue to exist under a ten per cent, reduction all round. Bat such a reduction would amount to a very small fraction of the total amount required by the colony. And here again the consideration comes in of maintaining the efficiency of the service, which being well weighed, renders it very doubtful whether the suggested reductions would be expedient. There are no doubt a few fat sinecures which might be dispensed with. But the difficulty is to

find a Government that will consent to

abolish those offices with which they reward their followers .for political and party services. There is a vague idea abroad also that the number of public servaxits could be reduced. But where cfcmld this reduction be made? There was once a poor woman who thought she could part with one of her dozen children to a rich man who wanted an; heir. As long as she thought of the dozen she was sure there was one to spare, but when, at night, she Went over them in detail as they slept, she found that she could not spare John, for he was the oldest, nor Harry, for he was always sickly, nor Sally, for she Was so useful, and so on to the baby, who Was less to be spared than any. We imagine that those who in like mnhner go over the various offices of the colony Will be much in the same position as this poor woman. If men were divisible into fractions, a saving could be effected, no doubt Thus, we could spare the tenth of a man from the Carlyle Post Office, but the difficulty is, how to deduct that tenth without rendering the remainder inefficient. Yet the cry of ‘Retrenchment’ rings om Mr Stout, the late Attorney-General, has been writing a series of letters to a Southern paper against the financial proposals of the Government, in which ho says that £150,000 a year could be saved by retrenchment in the public service. So Mr Stout’s party said before they got into office, and so he says now they are out of office. But why, in the name of all that’s true, didn’t Mr Stout tell the country this before ? When he Was a leading spirit in the late Ministry, why did he not tell the country that he and his colleagues Were spending £150,000 a year more than was necessary* The fact is that Mr Stont is now thinking of the dozen children, whereas when he was in the Ministry he was thinking of them in detail.

Nothing is bettor calculated to impress one with the difficulty of retrenchment than to read the debate on the estimates in the House* There are proposals to abolish the rewards to successful gold prospectors), and to abolish the volunteer force in the South Island, because it is purely ornamental* Almost every proposal to retrench is lost. In the Native Department, about Which We have heard so much, no reduction Was made. The Vote for purchasing food and clothing for indigent natives, Which last year was £2,ooo—although £IO,OOO was spent—was this year actually raised to £6,000. It is doubtful whether the House saves as much in a debate as Will pay its expenses during the time occupied. There is, then, but cold comfort for the taxpayer ; it is not a question of saving money, but of raising it.