Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1908. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9083, 25 February 1908, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1908. EDITORIAL NOTES.

THE fact that the recommendations of a Commission will add a million a year to the salaries of postal officials in Britain is likely to cause the taxpayers to think. The Pall Mall Gazette, viewing the tendency of the day, points out that State wage earners are becoming the masters of those who pay. This being the case it is surely the time that those who pay considered the position"and resolved that this state of affairs should no longer prevail. We have similar experiences in our little Dominion, where those in receipt of State pay, pension, or aid are “becoming sufficiently numerous to control or largely influence elections, and every year their number is swelled by the creation of new departments and the appointment of more inspectors or underlings. Scarcely an act is passed that does not involve some additions to the ranks of those ir the employ of the State. Even the industrious bee and the ravaging codliu moth, the herbs of the field and the fruit products of foreign lauds have been utilised

for the of inspectors—and supporters. That the position is becoming dangerous to good honest government there can be no question. A State should not be controlled by its dependents or pensioners. These will necessarily give whole souled "support to those who will bestow the most from the public coffers, and will give no heed to questions seriously affecting the public welfare. It should be enacted that every person who receives pay from the State in the shape of salary, pension, or relief, should be unable to exercise the franchise. That is tiie sole means by which the State employees or dependants can be prevented from exercising undue control. The voting power should be strictly||confined to Jthose who pay, and out of whose contributions the salaries of the others have to be' paid. Instead of allowing the interested classes to influence all elections it would be even preferable to give them one or two special representatives in Parliament, to be elected by themselves, and at the same time prevent them from taking any other elections.

THE extension of municipal trading operations is rarely as profitable as it is supposed to be by its advocates. When gas, tramway or electric lighting companies are seen to be making profits out of their undertakings the cry that these businesses should bo taken over and worked for the benefit of the public is at once raised and in many cases ratepayers are foolish enough to permit the credit of the borough to be used in order that the work may be carried on by the municipality. Unfortunately the difference between private and municipal management often makes difference between a profit and a loss, but as it would be unsatisfactory for an elected Council to admit that it was not making a profit'on municipal undertakings the accounts arc frequently kept—after the example of the Government railways—in such a form as to make the business appear more profitable than really is the case. The favourite method is to make little or no allowance for sinking fund and depreciation and the natural result is that ratepayers are deceived as to the true financial condition of their undertakings. The chairman of the Dunedin City Council Finance Committee has recently made a report on the municiapl trading concerns of that town in which ho points out that no depreciation or'siukiug fuuds”aro provided for the trams, electric power, water and gas departments. He estimates that £30,000 of such be allowed for*theso purposes and that then the net profit £ou the undertakings would he £15,000 per annum. As the loan indebtedness of the city for the trading departments is £BBO,OOO, the net profit is at tho rate of 1.7 per cent, a result which, as tho money required must have been borrowed at about 4 per cent, hardly gives a very favourable idea of the success of municipal trading in Dunedin.