Untitled

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2500, 19 July 1888, Page 2

Tiif. more the question of retrenchment is examined the greater the evidences brought to light in proof of many large reductions that are feasible in the present crushing expenditure of the country. It has already been shown what large sums can be saved in the various departments of the public service, the Legislature, education system, and railway maintenance. Tiie investigations of Mr Theo. Cooper, of Auckland, into the administration of the education system, together with the reforms proposed by others, demonstrate how its costliness can be removed without injury. The retrenchment party in the Assembly, who have been giving their close attention to this important matter have pointed out many directions in which the country can be relieved of its present financial burdens. Mr J. B. Wbyte, the member for Waikato, has been enquiring into the cost of the mail services, and discovers that with the growth of direct steam communication with the United Kingdom anil increased facilities for the transit of ocean mails, the colony is now paying too | extravagantly for its existing postal contracts, and that by exercising economy something like ±,50,000 per annum can he saved on the conveyance of transmarine correspondence. By remodelling Hansard, not abolishing it as many desire, but by limiting the reports to debates of great questions of policy or actual national importance, giving a prccis only of all other proceedings, by preventing members revising and often completely altering their speeches, and by appointing an editor for the publication, it is claimed that several thousands can be saved to the country. A return recently laid before the House has exposed the gross abuses prevailing amongst civil servants in Wellington, who by a fiction invented of officialism, draw large sums of public money for overtime and bonuses, from the highest rank to the lowest cadet. One highly-paid officer in the Public Works Department, enjoying a salary of £000 per annum, drew in addition to this, the sum of £400 for exceptional services. In any other walks of life, this style of making free use of the people's money's would be called by an ugly name, and would entitle tho parties concerned to free residence in one of Her Majesty's particular institutions. But, here is a palpable illustration of the excesses to which the members of the priveleged class the country has been nourishing will resort with libertine-like assurance. The greatest possible good will accrue to the colony from the course that lias been pursued in the direction of general retrenchment, and the expunging of abuses. Having onoe successfully accomplished large measures of economy to the extent of three or four hundred thousand pounds in the public administration, ultimately relieving it of its heavy load of taxation, aud reorganising the whole system of government, the colonv cannot but improve very rapidly, and regain its lost tone aud confi lence in itself. The cure has not yet been effected ; but when made complete and we are freed, for good and all from the artificial forcing process, New Zealand will asse Iherself again, and advance ill the natural and legitimate manner that should not have been departed from.