TOO MANY OFFICERS.

Patea Mail, 16 October 1880, Page 2

TOO MANY OFFICERS.

Ketrexcumext is to bo made in the several offices of Crown Lands Commissioners, by combining other duties with those now performed.. It ought to be palpable that Commissioners who are not fully employed arc taking money which they don’t earn. Nor is is reasonable that when two or more offices arc transferred to the same person, that person should continue to receive full salaries for the several offices. In a young colony, combination of offices is true economy, and might be carried much

farther than it is. He must be a dull politician who cannot see that the tendency has been to appoint a separate officer to each new duty that may be created. Tax-payers are ill treated in this way, that their public work is badly done, and yet the number ol officers to do it is excessive. Each new officer added to the public service considers himself a pensioner on the public estate. If his time be engaged one-half or only oue-fonrth, he is the more exacting about an increase of salary commensurate with his greater dignity. The public servant who is fully employed

is a mean fellow, a day labourer, and is paid laborer’s wage; but the superior officer who signs half a dozen documents a week which have been prepared by a lowly clerk is a person weighted down with responsibilities which must be paid for by a large salary and a pension to follow. With this class of officers some sympathy may be felt to this extent,

that they are where they are by no fault of their own, but as the result of a bad system ofbureaucratic extravagance. These officers have acquired the airs and habits of an official aristocracy. But the time has come when they must be taken down. Each officer should earn what.he gets, and do good work for it; and if he-resists a needful reform, a reform which every business man in the colony has to submit to, then let that officer be struck off the list of official ornaments. The present Government are entitled to much credit for the determined energy with which retrench-

ment is being pursued. Salaries paid to an army of civil servants may and do feed the trade of the colony ; but what of that ? If it is good to have ten thousand salaried servants because they spend money, it must be much better to have a hundred thousand servants because all the more money would be spent. The a-b-c of political economy ought to be better understood. Money required to pay on army of civil servants would be better employed if left to fructify in the hands of those workers whose labor is taxed to feed the army aforesaid. It is there that the shoe pinches.

A Congress on social science is sitting in Melbourne, to discuss sanitary matters. Arms arc said to have been imported into Ireland to a large extent from America and the Continent. There are now 60 Protestant churches in Spain, whose congregations aggregate 20,000, and are rapidly growing. Mr Charles Beade has made £9OOO from Drink 1 Some men have lost as much from

the same cause. Mr Henry Irving cleared over £IOOO per week during his season at the Lyceum Theatre, London. The first intimation that Mr Conyers received of his dismissal was through the columns of the newspapers. Yankee enterprise has penetrated the “ dark continent.” Last year Zanzibar imported 544,000 dollars’ worth of American goods.

A good harbour with safe entrance for steamers is found at Port Parker, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, tire terminus of the projected Trans-Continental railway. A Californian has invented a torpedo in the shape of a kernel of corn, which is designed for the beguilement of festive crows. As soon as the offensive crow takes hold of it the torpedo explodes and blows the crow’s head off. News from Norfolk Island states that Bishop Sclwyn was kindly received by the natives of Santa Cruz, four miles from whore Commodore Goodenough was murdered. Tichbornc meetings are being held in England on the old cry of releasing a persecuted baronet at the end - of the first term of seven years. The butcher is good for - another seven. The Australia Frozen Meat Company shipped 250 tons of frozen meat per Prolos

on the 31st, The meat consists of seven thousand carcases of sheep and a quantity of beef. The Peninsular and Oriental Company are building eight steamers, all over 4,000 tons, and it is intended to employ them principally in the Australian trade. H.M.S. Miranda, which left Plymouth for Australia at the end of August, was instructed to visit the inaccessible island of Tristan U’Acunha, to search for shipwrecked mariners. A syndicate of Calcutta merchants and others have taken active steps to introduce Indian tea into the colonies. Mr Leathorpe,

from Calcutta, is now in Melbourne with that object, and the tea is freely dispensed in the Indian Court, daily, to all visitors. .To Ngakau, formerly principal adviser to Kiwhai, andß. Graham are negotiating for 30,000 acres in the Lake country for McLean and Co., who occupy the evtensive Horihori Block, unoccupied for many years through Maori obstruction. Caxaw ax Pacific Railway. —The I dominion Government of Canada have nearly completed arrangements with an English syndicate for the construction of the whole of the Pacific Railway for £20,000,000. A land subsidy of 50,000,000 acres is to be granted.

Thfl Marquis of Normanby’a message to the Queen on opening the Exhibition, was sent from Melbourne to Balmoral in,23 minutes. The Prince of Wales also replied to tbo Marquis of Normanby’s telegram, saying lie was very glad to hear everything went off so well.

Flying Dancer. —(Enea, thS fiyingt dancer, is now all tbo rage in Paris. The dancer was first seen upon a rustic bridge spanning a dell at a height of about 20f. above the stage. From this she descends at a bound, and alights upon the stage so noiselessly that not a sound is heard. She springs aloft and bows gracefully in midair, without any apparent effort, and seemingly without the aid of any mechanical appliance. She can fly backwards or forwards, to the right or to the left ? with the same apparent ease, and her final exit is made by shooting from the stage into the flies up above the top of the proscenium, whence she again gracefully descends to receive the applause of the spectators.

Land Block. —For some months past Messrs Bailor and Booth have been arranging for the purchase of the Otamahapua block, adjoining the BangitikeiManawatu block,purchased b3’DrFeatherston. So far the negotiations have been unsuccessful, and have been discontinued. The block contains about 140,000 acres, and it is understood that Government were prepared to give as much as T47,000 for it, which would be equivalent to 10s per acre, for much of the land is really worthless ; but owing to the greed and rapacity of some natives, who wanted a lion’s share of the purchase money, no settlement could be arrived at.

Mr Byron’s comedy, The Upper Crust, has passed its 100 th night at the Folly Theatre, London, and is as popular as ever. Wagner has signified his willingness to visit the United States professionally for the small and modest sum of £200,000.

Archaeological researches in a mound near Sandefiord, Norway, have brought to light a boat 60ft long. It is supposed to be a Viking’s ship, used for piratical expeditions a thousand years ago.