The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. THURSDAY, DEC. 27, 1888.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2569, 27 December 1888, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

THURSDAY, DEC. 27, 1888.

Equal and exact justice to all men. Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious ®r political.

Titjc present Ministry are very far short of what a Government bent oil retrenchment and economical administration should be. They claim, we know, to have made great reductions in the cost of the services generally, and this out of re- ' ird to the popular wish. But the act of reform, pure and simple, in the system of cafryiag on the government of the country, which is so absolutely necessary, and which the common sense of the people consider expedient for the national welfare, is as remote as before. The Government reduces the salaries of its own individual members; a specimen of self-sacrifice that could be performed by very commonplace politicians. ISo dilFerence to the system is made by the act. They make a financial commotion amongst the small fry of the public departments, whilst the big fish are left unmolested ; and still the system itst'lf remains unaltered. The stupendous and overwhelming growth of the legislative and administrative machinery, which has attained a dimension never contemplated by the colonists nor the Constitution, remains intact, and apparently as tenacious of its hold on the life-blood and resources of the colony as was the Old Man of the Sea on Sinbad; it is as impossible to shake off. It is difficult to discover much distinguishing merit possessed by the present Government over their predecessors, beyoud the greater extent of the savings they have succeeds.! in affecting, after very extraordinary and supreme efforts to avoid the masterful influence of the power behind the throne —the Civil Service. It is somethin" very far above mere transitory savings in the annual expenditure that is essentially required. Complete and lasting economy can never be procured without a measure of a thoroughly reformatory character being introduced and effectually carried out. The Ministry have not touched the general features of the system, and their lack of reform in their administration condemns them as little or no better, than those who have occupied their seats before them. There would be no want of proof to support this indictment against the Atkinson Ministry wsre it necessary to devote time and space to enter into pacific statements. One, out of many, however, can be referral to by way of example, and this is the incessant peripatetic wanderings of every individual member of the Cabinet. It has been the fashion with New Zealand Ministers to devote much of their time, during the recess, to travel through the province. l ;, Tins fashion originally began with tho Native .Minister, svho, when the native question occupied the most .prominent position in tin politics of the colony, found it necessary to be personally near the seats of disturbance, and to parley with the chiefs of disaffected tribes, V/itJ.i the

introduction ot' the I'ublic Works policy find the scatter-cash epoch, the fashion s, read to all the occupants of the Treasury benches, until it grew into one of the grossest abuses of modern times in connection with honest popular governmi'nt. The moment a Parliamentary session is brought to a conclusion, then is the signal given for one Minister aftc;r another to absent himself from the scat of government, on the plea that public duty requires his personal attention or supervision at this or that locality, throughout the whole range of the colony's boundaries. The abuse reached its worst culmination with that most incapable of New Zealand's administrators, Sir George Giey, and after him with his close imitator, Sir Robert Stout. Nothing led so much to the corruption of the Borrowing Age, as the vicious peregrinations of Ministers ; nothing so conduced to the demoralisation of the people as the readiness with which every Minister has given ear to local demands, and the suavity with which he pledges himself and the public purse to the fulfilment of impossible and immoral promises. Sir George Grey spent most of his term of office in going from place to place, with no other purpose, certainly no other result than bestowing florid orations to gaping crowds, and giving free assent to every request made to him, until at the expiration of a, few months of travel, he had bestowed in promises over a million of money. Monuments of these fools'progresses of the Grey and other Governments can be met with in a variety of places; immense sums of money, on which we are now paying heavy interest, deliberately and utterly wasted. It is in this venal way that constituencies are dishonoured, members'votes are bought; and hence arises one of the greatest difficulties towards clearing the judgment of electors in the choice of trustworthy representatives. In no other country, under enlightened government, does such an abuse exist; in no other country would such an abuse be tolerated by the people. Neither in countries under autocratic or absolute regimes do Ministers of State absent themselves from the seat of power • not in countries under parliamentary gevernmsnts do we meet with this abuse. What would the English people say to their great Ministers, men who hold in their hands the destines of the mightiest and most opulent empire the world has ever seen, and one whose boundaries and responsibilities are ever expanding, what, we ask, would be the direction of public opinion upon them were they tr; tt'.ng about the country, or, in a similar fashion, visited distant possessions 1 They would be danounced for direliction of high duty, and as carcless of the safety of the nation. Not in the United States, with which we are inclined to associate political corruption of a low type, do the Secretaries-of-State leave the departments to fly about the country as New Zealand Ministers do. Not in the Australian colonies does this abuse exist as it does in this colony. Elsewhere, under wise government and systematic administration, there are trusted officials filling responsible positions whose reports and recommendations are sufficient to guide and influence the executive heads of departments or Ministers as to the wants and requirements of any par ticular locality, the explanation or elucidation of any local question, or in dealing with anything whatever connected with public affairs, If Ministers have to travel about to perform the work of their subordinates, it affords proof that there is either a superfluity of portfolios or that there are too many useless officials, ignorant of their duties, who cannot be trusted by their superiors. It is worthy of note, also, how tliis abuse has extended. From travelling alone, Ministers took to attaching a suite to themselves in tho shapo of a secretary, reporter, &c. Then the Under-Secretaries, with their confidential clerks, found it absolutely necessary for the good of the country (not thoir own, of course), to dasli away, hither and thither. And, beyond the fact that their movements are flashed along tho wires and recorded in the newspapers, like the visits of exalted personages of extra divinity, that they fill hotel waiters with awe and strike terror into the hearts of some poor devils of hard-worked subordinates who do not live in the odour of Wellingtonian sanctity, there is nothing to show for all the flourish and all the expense. The little they do could be more effectually performed through local, experienced officials. Again, the repeated absence of responsible Ministers throws greater power into the hands of the Heads of Departments in Wellington, who craftily play on the ignorance of details, official incompetence and want of practical knowledge of their Ministerial chiefs to exercise that immense influence which to-day suffices to make the Civil Service a power behind the Throne. The proper place for Cabinet Ministers is the seat of government; they should no moro leave their office to do their subordinates' work than should the capfcaiu of a ship leave his post on the quarter-deck to perform the work of his men by going aloft to take in sail. We can understand the Premier, or some brilliant colleague, paying an occasional visit to an important centre to deliver a political address by which he speaks to the whole colony, as British statesmen do. But it is pernicious and demoralising for Ministers of the Crown to be perpetually wandering over the country in every direction, on what they are pleased to term tours of inspection, and scattering douceurs in the shape of grants of public money to the thousand and one deputations who wait on them for some begging object or another. Tljis is what British Cabinet Minis-

ters do not lend themselves to. Therefore, wo repeat, the present Atkinson Government are but little romovod from their predecessors; they are not reformers.