The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1884. CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1649, 1 April 1884, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1884. CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

———* Before the week closes wo shall probably hear something more about Civil Service Reform from Major Atkinson. He means well in his present attempt .to put the Civil Service on a Banting diet, but it is doubtful whether he will succeed. He may bring down the weight of the patient by a few pounds, and when the House meets bo able to say," three months ago our Civil Service Daniel Lambert turned tho scale at seventeen stono now he only weighs sixteen stone and three pounds." He may be able to show somo such reduction as tin's, but everybody knows that it is easier for a stout man to pick up flesh than to surrender it, The moment the Banting process is suspended the Civil Service giant will begin to eipand, and before we know where we are he will be heavier than over. It is said that there aro ten thousand civil servants in this colony, arid as we do not possess more than a hundred thousand adults this means that one man in every ten is a Civil servant, that every nino colonists have the privilege'of .supporting a Civil servant. When,nine settlers. meet together in a friendly way it may not occur to them that they are the proud proprietor of a whole Civil servant. They may not know where he is, and how much ho does for them, but they may lay the flattering unction to their souls that the.hundred pounds or so that Keeps .him going all the year round, and which we believe is usually termed " his screw " comes out of their pockets every penny ot it, The point on which we would dwell, however, is the convenient aritbmatical number of ten .thousand. Assuming that we possess ten thousand Civil Service soldiers in New Zealand, will Major • Atkinson be able \o reduce the brigade to nine thousand five hundred? He may do, but after achieving such a success, what guarantee is there that this time next year this time two years hence the number' wont have swelled up again to ten thousand, or may be to eleven thousand 1 Ministers always have proteges, and Ministerial supporters have camp followers who want billets. Where Ministers have one application made to dismiss a oivil servant, they have a hundred to appoint new ones. The increase is colossal and continuous, the decrease diminutive and spasmodic. We want a guarantee that things in .the; future: will ho different to what ihey have been in the past, that the Government • should surrender to a Civil Service Board its privilege of making appointments, that political

patronage should be abolished and that Ministers and M.ER.'s should not be led into temptation, We notice that a' contemporary in another Province suggests that local bodies employ! half as many servants as the State, but it would be piliug the agony on too much to catalogue the latter as "supernumeries," and display the real producers in the colony as a minority bled to death for the maintenance of a majority. We will be content to take the Civil Service proper, and see what can be made of it. Once, some years ago, it sustained a rude shock when Messrs Alfred Saunders, and Charles Piiarazyn were appointed a Royal Commission and went.to woi'k to separate drones from the working bees. They told so many unpleasant truth's, however, that the' Government dared not face the picture they revealed but quietly relieved them from the work they had taken up, and hushed up the inquiry as quickly as possible. It was obvious then that any real Civil Service reform could not be effected by a Ministry, and we see no reason to expect better results now. We venture to predict that till Ministers and Members of the Assembly surrender the patronage which they,now enjoy, the Civil Service cannot V be; brought within proper limits. ~. ,'•: :••.