The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1888. RETRENCHMENT GONE MAD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1715, 24 March 1888, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1888. RETRENCHMENT GONE MAD.

The exigencies or retrenchment has deprived South Canterbury of two very important officers, viz,, the inspector and detective of police. Henceforth the inspector of police will reside in Oamaru, while there will not be a detective anywhere between Dunedin and Christchurch. Timaru has received a severe slap in the face. After having been recognised for the past 18 or 20 years as a centre of sufficient importance to locate there an inspector and detective, it has now been put back to the level of an out-station, and placed under the charge of a sergeantmajor. South Canterbury is also a part of Canterbury, and it is humiliating to a further degree to be cut away from the province and joined on to Otago. But all this after all is only sentimental. The important question is, how will the new arrangements work? We have no hesitation in saying that .they will work badly. South Canterbury is situated half way b-tween Dunedin and Christchurch, and when old criminals are let loose from gaol they will naturally make for it. It is sufficiently distant from both centres for criminals te pass unknown, and this will give them an opportunity to open up new enterprises. They will soon know, too, that in South Canterbury they will be further favored in it being the weak point in police surveillance. No inspector there to guide by his wisdom and experience the police force, no detective to dog the footsteps of criminals—it will at once be recognised as the happy hunting grounds of thieves and robbers. The consequence will be that South Canterbury will be overrun with criminals, and that honest people will suffer. It may possibly be that it will take some time before any serious change takes place. Offences will be committed, reports will reach the police, the culprits will escape because of the ineffectiveness of the police, the criminals will grow bolder, and in the course of time crime will become rampant. Before Mr Inspector Pender was removed to Christchurch some four or five years ago, that city was, literally speaking, a regular pandemonium with regard to crime. Housebreaking, burglary, garotting, indecent assaults, &c., were almost of daily occurrences. In fact, such was the state of affairs, that men going through the town at night ran great risks. Mr Pender was not long in Christchurch before all this was changed, and this proves our contention, that unless the police are under the control of an active, energetic officer, their usefulness will be marred. The police will never look up with the same amount of awe and respect to a sergeant, as they would to an inspector; the public will not place the same amount ot confidence in the former as they would in the latter, and evil-doers will be quite as ready to gauge the powers of both officers. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the change in South Canterbury is a serious one, but we feel sure that before long it will be put back to its former status. And then what will happen ? The present inspectors retire on allowances varying from about £6OO to £IOOO. In some instances their allowances are e,(jual to what would pay their salaries for from 2 years to 3 years, and without doubt before tfie end of three years the places of some of tfios.e yrho have been dismissed now must be refilled. The net result will be, therefore, tbaf po saving will be effected, while the service wifi 1)6 destroyed.

CRUEL TREATMENT. Absubd as a good deal of the retrenchment scheme is, there is more of it very cruel. For instance, Mr John Ollivier, after having served the colony for about 30 years, received a J notice on the 16th of March that his j

services would be dispensed with on the 31st of the same month. This is monstrous. Mr Ollivier was appointed by Act of Parliament in 1861 as provincial auditor; this was subsequently confirmed by another Act, and we believe that he is not removable except by a vote of two-thirds of Parliament. If Mr Ollivier resists the arbitrary action of the Government in thus dismissing him summarily, we feel almost certain that he will get the best of it, and Mr Ollivier is just the man to resist it. Unless we mistake not the Grey Government in 1878 attempted to remove M r Ollivier, but they found it undesirable to try it, after having consulted the law officers of the Crown. The present Government may possibly experience a similar difficulty if they persist in their present intentions. They have nothing on which to base their actions, except the abolition of the provinces, but the General Government took over the responsibilities of the provinces, ami Mr Ollivier’s appointment was included in those responsibilities. His salary is provided for by statute, it does not come out of the ordinary annual appropriations, and thus everything points in the direction of render ing it difficult to remove him from office. It is certainly very hard on him, after about 30 years of public service, to be sent off with a fortnight’s notice, and we only wish that he may be able to resist successfully the priggish .meanness which has treated him so shabbily. And after all what good will it do ? Simply this: The propertied classes will be probably relieved of taxation to a degree so infinitesimally insignificant that they will not feel it, while the sum of human misery will be immensely increased. , The policy of the present Government is to make “ the rich richer, and the poor poorer,” but their day of reckoning is yet to come, and when it comes the Atkinson oligarchy will fall to rise no more.