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

Auckland Star, Volume VII, Issue 1972, 5 June 1876, Page 2

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

MONDAY, JUNK 5, 1876

For tlie come that lacks asstetanco. For the wrong that needs resistance, Kor the future in the distance,

And the irood that 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 sweeping 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. Babco 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 unexampled 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 ear

penditure, and we regard the exposure of these frauds as infinitely more wholesome than the deceptive calm which preceded it, and allowed the public plunderer to go on his way rejoicing. Belknap's high position has not saved him from arraignment upon a oriminal charge, and the determined action of the Government in dealing with his case will doubtless carry terror into the hearts 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 Now Zealand's smaller efforts in the Bame direction is the bearing which political appointments have upon the question. Those who have examined most carefully into the origin of the exceptional jjcorruption among the officeholders under the United States Government attribute it very iargely to the political nature of civil appointments. With every presidential election, the civil servants of the old party are cleared out in favour of thf hangers-on of the new. They are thus, in self-defence, impelled to make the best of their opportunities during the four years term. The remedy rsug£?ested is the removal of the civil service as far aa possible from political influences. 'Fortunately for New Zealand, the system which is proposed as sn antidote for .American official peculation 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 protrction of the deserving members of the Civil Service, whose legitimate hopes of 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 'Act rendering! membership of tho 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 sicjns of the coming session teach us is urgently needed.