THE Thames Guardian AND MINING RECORD. MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1872.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 167, 22 April 1872, Page 2

THE Thames Guardian AND MINING RECORD. MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1872.

We have before us the ” Nominal Roll of tlic Civil Establishment of New Zealand, on the Ist of July, 1871, presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by command of his Excellency the Governor.” This, amongst many other returns, was called for last August, and lias only just made its appearance. The copy now before us

was received on Friday last. This shows an amount of delay which is not very creditable to the Government printing department. But to return to the document before us, which does not include political officers and their salaries, discloses a state of things which will ere long help to plunge the colony into bnnkruptcy and ruin. We may premise our observations by stating that there lias been no decrease lately in General Governmental expenditure, but on the contrary a large increase. From the returns as received on Friday it appears that there were 1,494 officials receiving £198,985, and of these 187 are in receipt of fees in addition to their salaries, and taking these fees at the low average of £ls the total will be £201,790. Since the above date a large number of appointments have been made—somewhere about 300, —and including the pay of the Governor and his staff and expenses, and the salaries of the various Provincial Government officials, which are not included in the returns, it may be set down in round numbers that it costs very nearly half a million a year to govern New Zealand. If this is not an alarming statement in view of a decreasing revenue and increasing loan, we should like to know what is. Great as the blessing of representative institutions may be, we doubt whether we are not paying too much for them in New Zealand. It would not do to go back to the old system of government in Crown colonics, but there must be reduction and reform in the mode in which the Government is administered here, or there will be utter ruin. The revenue of the country is, in round numbers, a million a year, and is on the decrease, and it will be found barely to meet the payment of interest on loan and salaries of officials. The population of New Zealand is estimated at about 200,000, not much more than that of many a single provincial town in the old country, but it takes nearly 3,000 officials to govern that amount of people. How the country is to prosper with such a weight laid upon it, we are at a loss to conceive, and the most extraordinary part of it is that the present Government seems to be popular in proportion to the amount of its expenditure. It is all very well while the money lasts to go on borrowing, but that must come to an end. The one million twelve hundred thousand pounds which was to have done so much for us has all been expended, and where are the railways, and where are the immigrants that were to have arrived. In the Province of Auckland there is not a mile of Governmental railway open for traffic, and the few immigrants that have been imported do not appear of the class likely to benefit themselves or the colony. It is even said that it is in contemplation to imjiort Chinese labour for the cheap construction of the contemplated works. That this movement will be a most unpopular one, there can be no doubt whatever, and action has already been taken to oppose the movement. We feel sure that, whether the immigrants be Chinese, or Scandinavian, or British, or American, who are induced to come here under the inducements held out by the agent in London, that when the present loans are exhausted they will find no attraction to stay here, but will take themselves off to fresh fields and pastures new, where taxation is less and land more accessible. The prospect before the country is indeed anything but pleasing, and it is the duty of the people to impress upon their representatives in Parliament the absolute necessity for a change in the policy at present pursued. We believe that very great reductions could be made in the Civil Services. The ■well-established principle of having a few able and well-paid officials in place of a host of incompetent and miserably paid clerks should be adopted. The whole of the ornamental sinecures should be swept away, the expenditure under the head of “ Native Department” greatly curtailed, and the administration of the goldfields be placed under one responsible head, as Minister of Mines. These, we conceive, are steps which might be advantageously taken, and will ere long force themselves upon the people, who will eventually speak in a voice loud enough to be heard. In matters of detail, there are many ways in which expenditure might be lessened. The Government Printing Office is one of those departments that should be done away with, and the work be done by contract. . Large subsidies to mail contractors, who fail to keep their time, should be stopped, and damages enforced for breach of contract. The existence of two separate Courthouses and two separate sets of clerks, as is the case at Graliamstown and Shortland, might be abolished, with no detriment to the public service, and a gain to the revenue. Upon the labouring classes the greatest portion of this very heavy burden falls, and will ere long prove more than they can bear, and will drive them away, and, without them, capital will not be invested, for the two must go together. Poring over blue-books and Governmental returns is not a pleasing occupation, and people, as a rule, do not trouble themselves with them, and, moreover, they are not always accessible: the majority are, therefore, not aware of the alarming facts which they disclose. From a careful perusal of the returns before us, we can come to no other conclusion than that if the Civil Service is not very soon considerably curtailed, and expenditure reduced, this fine Colony will soon drift into hopeless bankruptcy, and be deserted by the majority of its already very scanty population.