The Southland Times. FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1866.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 252, 4 May 1866, Page 2

The Southland Times. FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1866.

It is refreshing to nnd that the General Government is- at length beginning to discover that the Government of the Colony, to be satisfactory, must be conducted on systematic principles • that the zigzag policy so long pursued, must come to an end. The management of the Civil Service in New Zealand has ever been conspicuous for indifference to business. This is not to be wondered at. Appointments have been made at the caprice or whim of the hon. gentlemen who, for the time, happened to be in power; offices have,been multiplied by one Ministry, and re-constructed by another, until all efficient public servants have lost confidence in Governmental professions, and only held office until other fields for their labor presented themselves. Thus, every department has been defective. No one felt that attention to business would be rewarded, and careless indifference as to efficiency has become the chronic state of the General Government official mind. . It is with satisfaction, therefore, that we learn that the Stafford Ministry have taken up the question of " Civil Service Reform." From a telegram forwarded from Sydney to Melbourne, under date April 11th, we learn that: — : "Tiie New Zealand Government has requested this (New South Wales) Government and the Victorian Government to appoint two commissioners to reorganise the Civil Service, and plan an income-tax. Mr William Forster has oeen appointed as one." This is satisfactory to a certain extent. It has long been a subject for regret that the Civil Service of the colony has not been placed upon : a fair and equitable basis. Men who have grown grey in the service have been passed over, and others with no better qualifications than being the personal friend or political partizan of some of the party in power, have been placed over them, while others have been dismissed to make room for friends and supporters. This is a system vicious in principle and degrading in practice. It is therefore a consolation to know that the Government have realised the desirability of -a change in the conduct of the Civil Service, while it is humiliating to think that it was compelled to acknowledge its incompetency to reform it, and necessitated to seek the kind offices of New South Wales and Victoria. This has however, been done ; and it is to be hoped that good will result from the movement. The only equitable system to secure efficient and public servants, is by the adoption of examination in the first instance, and fair promotion afterwards. A Civil Service bill is urgently required. The present holders of Government appointments are entitled to promotion, whenever a superior office becomes vacant, in rotation, if found qualified to fill the higher post; and a fixed scale of retiring pensions .should be adopted. This would be an inducement for able and ambitious young men to enter the Government service, and throw their whole energies into the , work ; official appointments would besought after, not as a convenience for a time, but as presenting a life-long field of labor; that might lead to honor and distinction. All would feel a personal interest. 'in the efficient working of the governmental machinery ; they would ceas-d to be indolent routine-men, and become persevering workers, and progressive tiiiixkers. Thus, the nppointjDieht of a commission to suggest a Civil Service Bill is calculated to prove highly beneficial to the future working of the 'Government. ■■'•■'■' From the Wellington correspondent of the Daily Times, a * gentleman who is generally correct in his statements, we learn that the 'matters to be referred to this outside commission are not to be confined to the manufacturing of a skeleton Civil Service Bill, but they are also requested to forge a system of increased taxation. He says: — *'It was generally believed that the Income Tax was abandoned ; but whether this is so or. not the Assembly is to have a full report on the best means of bringing it into operation if it chooses to adopt it. A commission is about being appointed, consisting of three gentlemen — one from Victoria, another from New South Wales, and a third from New Zealand — to draw up the report alluded to, and also to examine into and report on ,. the Civil Service. The Government of Sydney asked Mr E. Deas Thomson to be their nominee, but on his refusal Mr Forster (the gentlemen who lately moved a resolution coudenjuing . the JPanama service) hw been aaked md conseated; The oth&y satoes have ;»«t yet transpired, but.

I suppose the commission cannot now. be very long before it meets, and commences its "enquiries." We are not prepared to affirm that au Income Tax is bad in principle if it could be proved that such a tax would be equitably levied, and that by its adoption present taxation would be diminished. But we do object to be legislatedforby outside legislators whocan have but an imperfect knowledge of the position—the probable income of the various classes in* this Colony. It appears to us that to obtain sufficient data upon which to justify such a tax, the work should be entirely undertaken by the Colony itself. Is it reasonable to suppose that Victorian and New South Wales politicians should understand the double Government system that prevails here ? —a system by which the people are heavily taxed for Provincial expenses, and again taxed for General Government expenditure. If Mr Staffoed's intention is to obtain a revenue from such a source for General Government purposes alone, it will deserve the most fierce and determined opposition; and if the powers of taxation now possessed by the Provincial Governments are to be taken away, Provincialism will become a sham and a delusion. Again, the difficulties of determining the income of any man in New Zealand, are of a character which would puzzle a magician, much less ordinary men to surmount. The Fluctuation in trade; the v rise and fall in the value of property which mark our progress, render it almost impossible for any business man to determine his own income for three months together. Again,' who is to estimate the annual income of the miner ? It may be advanced that a system something like that adopted in England —on the census collecting plan —might be adopted. This is impossible. Even in Great Britain it is a Imown fact that numbers ; evade the payment of this tax by travelling by rail on the night when the forms are to be filled up; and in New Zealand a very large majority of the peoplecouldadoptthis mode of evasion with but trifling inconvenience to themselves. The report of the Commissioners will be looked for with interest, and should they succeed in laying down a system for an income Tax, which will aid the General Government without pilfering from the Provincial chest, or increasing the buthens of the already overtaxed Southern colodists, they will deserve to be- immortalized as statesmen of the highest stamp —to have their names ranked among those giants, of finance Peel, Gladstone, and others. It behoves the members of the General Assembly for the Middle Island to watch with anxious watchfulness this movement, and the people to hold themselves in a state of preparedness to support their members in a determined opposition, should a measure be brought forward of the objectionable character which we bespeak for that of an Income Tax for New Zealand.