HANSARD AND RETRENCHMENT.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 30, 29 July 1867, Page 3

HANSARD AND RETRENCHMENT.

Mu. Staffoud obtained office by raising the cry of retrenchment, and be ought to lose ofnee by the same process. The heavy and unnecessary expenditure in many of the departments of the General Government must he curtailed. The times are not such as will render any longer tolerable the official extravagance which has of late years been indulged in. The only way to secure a reduction in the expenditure is for members and the press to watch carefully every vote that is proposed when the Estimates are under consideration. Strange to say members feel indisposed to propose a reduction in any particular vote while talking loudly of the necessity for a general reduction in the expenditure. The reporters fur the newspapers have, also got it into their heads that reports of the proceedings of the House in Committee

arc not required, and hence large sums are cither voted without exciting any discussion, or without the discussion being made known to the public. Now wc have a Hansard, probably this state of things will be altered, and if so, the money expended in its publication will be well laid out. When gentlemen become candidates for senatorial honors, they “'go tlie whole bog” for retrenchment ; but when they become members they conveniently forget all the promises they made to their constituents. Mr. Stafford, when leader of the opposition, is not more different from' Mr. Stafford when leader of the House, than the candidate at the hustings is from the member when be has taken his seat. Tim atmosphere of the House has hitherto been as fatal to the independence of members as a seat on the Treasury benches. “ Hansard” will probably effect- a reform in this respect. Members will know that their sayings and doings will be made known to their constituents, by a rather different process to that which has been hitherto in operation. In the language of a defeated candidate at a recent election, wo call upon members to take care that no mere idlers are kept in Government pay, to use their combined efforts to prevent fresh offices being created in order to provide for ministerial favorites, and, above all, to seo that in every department efficient servants are employed, and such careful supervision taken that the cougtry shall have in future fair value for its monev. If thet r do, this retrenchment, will not prove an empty cry, and “Hansard” will inform their constituents of their proceedings. Without Hansard” wo should despair of any retrenchment being effected ; with “ Hansard” we have great hopes that a reduction in official

expenditure, resulting from the exposure of official extravagance and the publication of the debates, will be forced by Parliament upon Ministers.