HOW TO RETRENCH.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 May 1921, Page 11

HOW TO RETRENCH.

v DRASTIC AMERICAN METHODS. B If Mr. Massey could spare the time, il 5 might be worth his while when at Home a to run across to New York and consull j Mr. Miller, the Governor of Isew Yorli _ State on the art of retrenching Government expenditure (says the Christchurch Press). Governor Miller took office at the beginning of the year, having promised to save the State seventy-five million dollars, say, fifteen millions ster- ; iin& in the first year of his administra- ! tion. Everybody said it was impracticable, a good many probably office-hold-ers, declared it to b£ impossible, but jn two months the budget for the curwas cut down from 205 million to 130 million dollars. More than 800 useless jobs were cut off the State pay-roll, and some 400 or 500 more were awaiting amputation. Whole departments were being extinguished without hurting the machinery of Government. The economy policy extended to the smallest and most remote branch of the State service. Much of the credit of this wholesale pruning appears to belong to Senator Hewitt, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He is obviously one of those men who does things while other men would be talking about doing them, and also one of the cktss who cares nothing for precedents. We judge so, at least, by the manner in which he went about his job. After about a month of retrenchment the process seemed to have come to a full stop when only 45 million dollars had 'been cut off the budget. He was told by everyone t'hat that was as low as it could possibly go. “Is it?” remarked the Senator; “You just watch me.” “Then,” we read, “he sat down at his telephone and sent out wdrd to the head, of every department and bureau that they must get busy and cut a few thousands more out of their department estimates or their jobs would not be safe. There was a roar of protest. ‘I have got to have 150,000 dollars to repair the roofs of buildings in my department,’ sAid the head of one department. ‘You get 30,000 dollars,’ the Senator answered,” The departmental head grew angry. He told the Senator that his was a poor kind of economy, and asked what was the sense of saving 100,000 dollars if leaky roofs were going to do 200,000 dollars’ worth of damage. The Senator’s only reply was that the sum he had allowed would make every roof 'in the department

watertight, and if any leaks did even 10,000 dollars worth of damage, “I tell you confidentially, that I wouldn't give a nickel for your job.” The latest report indicates that the departmental head, being able to take a hint of that kind, was at once satisfied that the 30,000 dollars allowed him would do the job. It would be interesting to lea/n how that Senator would go about the task of reducing expenditure on the public services of New Zealand.