COSTLINESS OF COLONIAL MINISTERS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2376, 28 October 1880, Page 4

COSTLINESS OF COLONIAL MINISTERS.

The 44 Sydney Morning Herald ” recently had an article drawing attention to the expenses incurred by the different Australian colonies, merely in maintaining Governors and Ministries without referring to the subordinate expenses of the various Governments. Thus the six colonies of Victoria New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania, with an aggregate population amounting to 2,080,951, have six Governors, and forty-two Ministers. The Governors’ salaries amount to £38,000 and Ministers’ salaries to £53,950- Taking Ministers alone, we find that their salaries paid by little over two and a half millions of people, are nearly equal to those drawn by the Cabinet Ministers of the United Kingdom, with a population of 35,000,000. Commenting on these facts, the “ Australasian ” says : —lf the limitation to the English Cabinet Ministers is set aside, the whole British Ministry is not more numerous than our Ministers in these colonies, aud is not paid more than double as much. No one can doubt that we pay an extravagant cost for our Governments, and that, as our contemporary suggests, co-operation between the colonies would make our administration more effective, and much less expensive. Many readers will remember that Sir Henry Parkes, m a recent review article, used this line of argument in support of a system of administrative federation of the colonies Without question, the argument is a sound one, and if our Government were governed by simple reason, would be a weighty one, As the case stands, it has no weight whatever, and probably will never exercise any weight in the settlement of the question. Under our existing sj'stem wo have developed a class of professional politicians whose interests are not always at one with those of the community. We have committed the conduct of our public affairs to them. They find their ends very well answered under the present arrangement, and they are scarcely likely to be much attracted by the advantages of a change which would deprive a large number of them of their sole means of livelihood. Whatever may be the cause by which federation is brought, if,it be brought about, we may be quite assured that it will not be initiated by the politician clases from a desire to save the money, the colonies now waste in paying the salaries of an absurd number of Cabinet Ministers.