WASTEFUL PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1915, Page 3

WASTEFUL PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.

To the Editor. Sir, —In these limes, when every penny the country can spare is required for war and war material, these are two demands made annually on the tax-payer that in the humble opinion of the writer should be substituted .to some purpose of more benefit to the country—if only to make roads in the backblocks. These demands are (l)The useless Xative Department both over the country and in Wellington; and (2) The unnecessary expenditure in England of the Representation on the Privy Council. These two items amount to a tidy sum every year. It must be remembered that this latter item does not include the cost of the High Commissioner's department in London. There are few electors but will admit that the natives are as capable of looking after their own interests as what the Europeans are; in fact, many of them more so, inasmuch as they have little else to do! And it is high time they came in line under the same laws in all respects. Some twenty years ago it was maintained by several members in the House, and people outside, that this Department, with the attendant expenditure, was a completo waste of money. How much more so is it at the present day? The natives should be brought under the same electoral laws, and departmental matters should be dealt with by the departments to which such matters rightly belong. As to the special Representation on the Privy Council, any one visiting that chamber, which is open to listeners, will only witness a few lagging veterans of the,stage sitting ground the table, with a clerk and an usher in velvet breeches and silk stockings to maintain an imposing appearance, the whole forming a very solemn pantomime of gentlemen who should be retired on old age pensions. This is not said disrespectfully, but, nevertheless, is the fact. As to cases referred to that body by the oversea Dominions, there are very few fro'rti this country, and these could be as well and satisfactorily settled in New Zealand as at Westminster. It is said a® an excuse by those in authority that the appointment made by this Dominion was for the reason that the appointee would know the circumstances of the cases referred to the Council, and of the Colonial administration, the very subjects that an Imperial Judge of Appeal should not require, or desire to' know. Such court should be free from bannings in* cither direction. Neither side would be likely to suffer through the want of a New Zealand pensioned judge on the Privy Council. Counsel is usually sent with the cases from the colonies, and can submit the Colonial Law to the Court, without the presence on the Bench of retired Colonial judges. England has many ] colonics as important as this Dominion., These are not burdened with maintaining the Privy Council, and there can be no fair reason why New Zealand should be; in fact, no reason at all, when our debt and taxation is considered. —I am, etc. TAX-PAYEIi Waitara, December 3, 1915.