COMMENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1832, 3 April 1884, Page 2

COMMENTS.

Of all the many contributions to the literature of Retrenchment, none possesses more interest or goes straighter to the heart than a letter from Colonel Gorton to the New Zealand Times. The colonel acquired notoriety, or perhaps we ought to say fame, as Inspector of Government stores, and many a piquant little anecdote, illustrative of the gallant inspector's peculiarities, still linger in the official atmosphere like the odour of a last year's rose. There is a tiadition extant that the colonel had very little to do, except to travel about and look fierce and diaw his pay, but that tradition, now almost an article ot faith, stood unchallenged only be cause the chief party concerned could not open his mouth in his own deteuce. .Since his compulsory retirement from the Public Service, he is bound by no considerations of secrecy, and in this letter to which we refer he gives us to understand pretty clearly that stamping the broad arrow on office-rulers, pencils and penholders by no means comprised the whole of his duties. He knows that the public used to wink its eye when Lid office was referred to, but he declares that he never worked so hard in his life as when he was in the New Zealand Government Service. But all this is beside our present purpose. Whatever may have been thought of the Stores Department and its inspector, he is at any late competent to write on the subject of the retrenchment in the Civil Service ; any suggestions corning from a ci\ il servant of fourteen years standing ought to carry some weight, more especially when that servant has ' passed out of the magic circle and can serve no material interests of ins own by writing about it. Colonel Gorton deprecates the system of attacking the service whenever a deficiency in the revenue makes it necessary that the Government should reduce the public expenditure, and though this view has been urged before, our friend the colonel gives it considerable additional importance. He sa yg ;—" ; — " Retrenchment, everyone must admit, is necessary, and such should be made until the country lives within its means, in other words, until the revenue covers all expenses, &c, but let retrenchment and justice go together. Of course the Civil Service is the first point of attack, and always has been in my experience, for the last twenty years, and clerks drawing salaries from £100 to £300 per annum are made to suffer far more in proportion to their means than anyone else, miny of whom are struggling on, living from hand to mouth, some, I am afraid, possibly in debt. Amalgamation of offices where practicable, and dispensing with the services of those not wanted, is far moie just to the service than a general reduction of hard-earned salaries, which should only be resorted to as a last extremity ; and those whose services were not required should receive ample notice in order that they may have time to seek for other employment— an important matter I have seen much neglected," It is folly to think, and no one with any pretensions to common sense does think nowadays, that the Civil Service is a corporation of pampered menials, living in luxury upon the country's life-blood. The fact of the matter is, our civil servants are, on the whole, a hard working, conscientious set of men, and the least we ought to do is to treat them as such. Retrenchment we must have, but let it be carried out in as humane a spirit as possible. Civil servants have hearts— some of them have large families to boot, or, rather, to provide boots for.

Journalists we know are writers of contemporary history. No Rusden of "the next generation would attempt to write ths hwtory of this without consulting tho

___ _ 3J- - - - ances atf Cambridge on Monday and Tuesday evening last. On Monday evening the tent was crowded, every available seat being occupied. On Tuesday, however, the attendance was not so large. The programme was exactly the same on both occasions. As it had been announced on Monday evening that a new and entire change of programme would he presented on the succeeding evening 1, this caused consider•iWu disappointm^il, and many who attend«d e.\nmv»ed tliun s>mprise that the propi ietor-> should 'n iko a. promise which they eifcner did not intend or were unable to fulfil. Many we/it on Tuesday evening lov the expresa purpose of seeing the n.'w and entire chango of programme promised. It would bo far better if circus ui uiagei'd depended upon the pcrfectness and intrinsic merit of their show than on duping the public, by making promises which they must be fully aware are not genuine.

"A G-ooi. Liberal" writes as follows to a Home paper:—The advocates of women's suffrage and of women in public work aie fond of taking it for granted tb.it their opinions are gaming ground m the Liberal p.uty. For myself, with fair opportunities of judging, 1 doubt it. The experience of the election of guardians is not favourable to them, and with regard to women on school boards and other public bodies, where are the cases in which they have been of sei vice ? Unfortunately in public business as in private life it is found that women are apt to form their opinions by their likes and dislikes, and to be moved bv personal reasons rather than by the merits of the questions at issue ; and this has made them the cause of ill-feeling and discomfort in the boards on which they have sat. Thoie has been nothing in the work which they have contributed to counterbalance this. They have done nothing which could not have been as well or better done by men.

Lord Wolsely's latest public certificate as to the condition of the army is far and away the most favourable it has re- | ceived. Some of his statements, indeed, aie almost too good to be true. Lord Wolseley is an optimist, no doubt, but he is an English gentleman, and he would not deliberately deceive his countrymen on a point of such vital importance as that of the condition of their military forces. So that when he tells us that " short service has really and actually been a .success," that " the men who have recently enlisted are as fine as, if not finer, than those who have enlisted at anv time since he joined the seivice," that "England has at no period of her existence had an army more worthy of her reputation than the army which she has at the ptesent moment," and that "m every way, officer for officer and man for man, the army is more effective than it was before the Crimean War," we aie either bound to believe him and to dismiss all the cioakings of the alarmists about "weedy boys," "service going to the dogs," &c, or we must «et down the ablest and most successful general in our service as one who deliberately deceives the public in a matter vital to the t-afety of the realm. We ("Pali Mall Budget") need not say which alternative the public will accept.