The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED "The Evening News," "The Morning News," and "The Echo." MONDAY, JUNE 5, 1876

Auckland Star, Volume VII, Issue 1971, 3 June 1876, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED "The Evening News," "The Morning News," and "The Echo."

MONDAY, JUNE 5, 1876

For tlie «vie that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance For tlie future iiilclte distance, And the j*ood tliat we can do.

Official corruption in America has attained alarming proportions, and upon the principle that when things reach their worst they will mend, it is probable that the recent exposures will result in bweeping reform. Among the many cases of fraud committed by high officials, which fill the American journals to hand by the last mail, that of Belknap, Secretary of War, takes pre-eminenoe. The offence he has been impeached upon is the sale of a post-tradership, for which Mrs Belknap, within the knowledge of her husband, received ten thousand dollars and a guarantee of six thousand dollars annually. Baboo ck, the President's private secretary, to whose influence Colonel Steinberger's appointment was attributed, is accused of a similar offence. The causes which have induced this unexadVpled public demoralization find some parallel in the circumstances that have fostered official corruption in New Zealand. Wherever an enormous unchecked expenditure prevails there inevitably will be found systematic malversation. America is now throwing off the dregs left^by the' war ex"

peuditure, and we regard the exposure of these frauds as infinitely more wholesome than the deceptive calm ■wbjdh'-CpracedecU.itj',-and allowed the public plunderer, to go-bni his way rejoicing. Belknap's high position has not saved him from arraignment upon a criminal charge, and the determined action of the Government in dealing with hia case will doubtless carry terror into the bear's of those lower down the ladder who have quietly soiled their hands with unholy bribes. Another respect in which American jobbery finds a parallel in New Zealand's smaller efforts in tbe same direction is the bearing which political appointments have upon tb^, question. Those who have, examined most carefully into the origin of the exceptional "[corruption among the officenolders under the Unlfed gfcatea Government attribute it very largely to the political nature of civil appointments. With every presidential election, the civil servants of the old party are cleared out In favour of the hanp;ers-6n of the new. They are thus, in self-defence, impelled to make the best of their opportunities during the four years term. Th£ remedy 'suggested is the removal of the civil service as far as possible from political influences. 'Fortunately for Mew Zealand, the system which ia proposed as an antidote for .Americanofficiarpeeulation has been bequeathed to us" with our British institutions, and there is little cause of complaint against the hard-worked and poorlypaid officers who do the drudgery of the civil service. Bub of late years the corruption of members of the legislature by promises of office has become a public scandal, and. a fa*reiching reform in this direction is 'required for the protection of the deserving members of the Civil Solrvice, whose legitimate hopes or promotion are annulled by the award of positions of honour as a reward for political support, no less than for the preservation of purity in our legislature. An ;Acb rendering! membership of the Assembly a permanent disqualification for any paid office under the Government of the colony, unless the appointment received the endorsement of a majority in the Assembly, would afford a safeguard which past experience and the premonitory signs of the coming session teach us is urgently needed.