Hansard and Retrenchment.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 700, 3 November 1909, Page 6

Hansard and Retrenchment.

COMMENTS BY A MINISTERIAL JOURNAL.

The question of whether there should be retrenchment in connection with Hansard has cropped up. The New Zealand Times deals with the matter in a leading article headed " Wasteful Expenditure." "It is really an astouisbins thing," says the Times, "that Parliament should go on from year to year sanctioning a huge expenditure on this costly monument to its own prolixity. No one ever leads Hansard. It is a dreary wilderness of words, and represents an expenditure altogether irreconcilable even with the desire of the Legislature to possess a permanent account of its proceedings. Verbatim reporting is a most wasteful form of recording parliamentary or other debates—extravagant in point of outlay and labor, and useless for practical purposes. With a not inconconsiderable kuowledge of the past 20 years' political strife in this countiy, we can say with perfect confidence that there never yet was a speech delivered in Parliament or out of it which could not be improved for recoid purposes and for immediate reading by reduction to the extent of at least one-eighth. To report parliamentary debates in the first person, and to employ relays of stenographers and squads of compositors and printers 10 go to the expense of placing on lecord the weaiy Hood of garrulity, is not to be justified on any giouuds of necessity or expediency. When circumstances require reference to Hansard for the- purpose of learning what was said on any particular sul ject one is confronted with the task uf rummaging through a mountain of chaff in order to reach the grain of wheat. Yet cumbrous and leally useless as the thing is, many thousands of pounds a year are spent upon its production. The proceedings of the Legislature and the speeches of the members could be placed fairly on record, and the volume iu which they, were punted be made of actual value at an expenditure of not more thau one-third of what is now tolerated. Thousands of pounds are annually thrown away by adhering to a system which has outgrown its usefulness. Regaid for economy and efficiency demands that this preposterously lavish concession to vanity should be discontinued forthwith."