South Canterbury Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2386, 9 November 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1880.

Of late there has been a lull in the retrenchment operations of the Government ; the hand of the executioner has been stayed; the departmental trees have been shorn into something like symmetry, and the Civil Service has breathed more freely. Two or three of the State departments have undergone severe treatment. The Railway, the Police, and the Native Departments have shed their dearest blood. The motto inscribed by the eaily convicts “ we left our country for our country’s good” might be gracefully adopted by not a few of the disbanded ones. The late Commissioners of Railways, the District Court Judges, and several other choice exotics, who have been blooming vigorously in the possession of substantial sinecures for years have retired on fat superannuation allowances, while the small fry, such as railway clerksand porters, police constables, and telegraph operators, who have been living from hand to mouth, have received in lieu of a pension or other compensation a few hours’ notice of dismissal. For these anomalies and eccentricities the Government of the day is not responsible. On the contrary, we imagine that it is with the utmost reluctance that Ministers have had to conform to old and barbarous customs and usages, based upon the somewhat inexplicable quotation, ‘‘ To him that hath shall be ~-iveii, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath,” If they have had to grease the

fat pig it is simply because they could not decently escape from the contract, and out of no love for the operation.

So far as they have proceeded we are prepared to give the Government every credit. If in some individual cases they have done an injustice we are satisfied that so far as the political heads of departments are concerned, it has been done quite inadvertently. In carrying put these reductions Ministers have necessarily had to he guided greatly hy the recommendations of the working heads, and it requires no great insight into human nature to perceive that corrupt agencies actuated by keen personal motives may have drawn a red herring across the trail and put them on the wrong scent. In dealing with the police service one or two blunders have been made for which the Government have not been responsible, and it redounds to the credit of the Ministry that whereever cases of obvious injustice have been pointed out, the error has been promptly remedied. This has been done in the case of one or two of the senior inspectors, who were threatened with dismissal, and in these instances the promptitude with which the Ministry acted has materially improved their prestige as administrators. If this prestige is not to be clouded, howthere arc one or two matters that demand immediate attention. In undertaking the work of retrenchment the Government promised that they should endeavor, if possible, to unite economy with efficiency. Now there is a kind of economy usually designated cheese-paring, which is more apparent than real ; hurtful rather than beneficial. This species of false economy has been practised at the expense of Scrgt. Haldane and another police officer in this district. After working their way upwards from the ranks, and winning their stripes as the result of active and faithful services, these officers suddenly find themselves disrated. Trom sergeants of police they are reduced to the position of constables, and why 'i Not certainly for the sake of retrenchment, for the miserable saving effected only amounts to sixpence per day. They arc humiliated and degraded apparently for no sound reason, unless it is to make a show of economy where there is really none, and to drive good men out of a service in which genuine efficiency can ill be spared. We arc well aware that in the police service as in other Government departments, (he existence of active, intelligent, well educated officers are a standing menace to their indolent, half educated superiors, hut that is no reason why the latter should he enabled to exercise an intolerable despotism. While we do not insinuate that any motives of this kind have operated prejudicially in the cases to which we invite attention, we submit that some reasonable explanation should be forthcoming for the peculiar manner in which the educational attainments, good conduct, and experience of Sergt. Haldane and his brother officer have just been recognised. The pecuniary blister of sixpence a day coming on the top of the ten per cent reduction is probably something which, in the interests of their families, they can ill afford to spare, but it is a mere bagatelle compared with the degradation which a reduction of status implies. When a man is earnestly climbing the ladder of promotion a sudden and cowardly blow in the face usually staggers him, and if the hand that deals it is the hand of a pretended friend, he may recover from the insult but ho cannot forgive it. This is just the position of Sergeant Haldane and his companion in misfortune. They have received a blow in the face, as the reward of zeal and diligence, from a hand which they believed friendly, and it has been dealt at an unexpected moment, when the sword of the Civil Service executioner appeared to be sheathed. The few coppers deducted from their not over-liberal allowance is a small affair ; but the stripe which they honestly won has, for no apparent object, been ruthlessly torn from their wrists, and they stand reduced, disgraced, lowered, and disfigured in the

presence of those who were their subordinates but yesterday but who are to-day their equals, •

Wc ask the Government to reflect for a moment whether this barren flashing of the sword is likely to improve or demoralise the public service of the country. Mere nibbling is not genuine retrenchment. The paltry saving represented by sixpence a day in the pay of two police sergeants is but a poor species of economy when it is carried out at the cost of discouragement and degradation. It is not the kind of economy that a private employer of labor would enforce. Following the ten per cent reduction so closely, it means a blow in the face where there should be a word of kindly recognition. It is hardly possible,that officers so reduced can without loss of manly dignity mix with their familiar subordinates. The reduction wc imagine, really involves the breakingup of their homes, their removal at their own solicitation to some distant station, if not ultimately their relinquishing in disgust a thankless service. If the Ministry are wise they will reconsider this matter. We give them every credit for the way in • which they have dealt with some of the departmental sinecures. But the police-tree has been severely pruned, and this interference at the last moment with one or two sergeants is only cahdated to keep up a feeling of irritation ; to drive the sap inwards, and destroy the symmetry of the plant. AVc are satisfied that the Government have

not considered tlie effect of these reductions or they would not have allowed them. It is not, however, too late to remedy the mischief, and we hope that for the sake of the police, the blow to emulation which the reduction of Sergeant Haldane and his fellow officer implies will yet be parried.