The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESDAY, JULY 31, 1888.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 179, 31 July 1888, Page 4

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

TUESDAY, JULY 31, 1888.

For the ____]__» that lack, mai-timc-, For the fß___h_-,at needs re»i»tance< Por tho futSKn the distance, And the good that we can do.

The reply of Sir H. A. Atkinson to the Auckland Political Financial Reform Association, with the Association's rejoinder, has at last been published. The document is too long and traverses too much ground that has been gone over before for us to re-print it at length, but no one can read it dispassionately without seeing that the Premier has got our little coterie of Financial Reforuiors firmly by the wool, and their wriggle to escape from his clutches is wholly ineffectual. The Association, in fact, make no real attempt to upset the Premier's position, except with respect to the question whether his proposal for Civil Service retiring allowances amounts to a revival, of the pernicious system that has been abolished. That is an issue apart from the question raised by the Association as to whether the cost of administrative government has or has not increased during the last 27 years at a greater rate than the population. On the question of pensions or retiring allowances we ate inclined to agree with the Association that Civil servants should be compelled, like persons in private employments, to make their own provision for old age or loss of employment, and the majority of the service Would probably prefer to do this rather than submit to the proposed compulsorydeductionsfrom their salaries for the creation of a retiring fund. The individual officers could probably employ the moneys so deducted to greater advantage than the Government are likely to do.

Coming to the chief point at issue, the Premier makes good his statement that the services maintained in 1860-1, at a cost of were maintained in 1886-7 at a cost of £704,334, being, in i-ound numbers, less than the amount Which the Association assumed to be reasonable, taking into consideration the fact that the population had increased seven and a-quarter times since 1860-1 ; and in demonstrating his case, the Premier makes mince-meat of tho Association's attempt to draw up a national balance-sheet. He points out:

You put together actual expenditure of 1886-7 in respect of a portion of the services of that year, and estimated expenditure in respect of a portion of the services for the year current (including some services twice over.) . . . If you will look back you will see that you have included twice in your total of £947,213 the following items :— £. The Government and establishment .. 7,500 Ministers " 6,600 The Legislature .. .. 36,405 On the other hand, while including Defence £158,666, you have omitted the cost of some eia;ht or nine departments, amongst which are Prisons, Police, Lunatic Asylums, Stamps, Property Tax, Stock and Native Land Courts,

AU the Association's reply to these clenchers is a flippant remark that " the public are fully awaro that successive executives on the advice of an interested Civil Service have been ever ready to create new departments on the shortest notice for every administrative absurdity." Tbe Association wholly ignore the fact that these departments were in existence during their model period of 1860-1, and were a charge upon the public revenues, although the Premier makes it plain that many of these charges were thrown on to the colonial Government by the abolition of Provincial Governments. The cost of charitable aid and lunatic asylums, ; prisons, _£31,273j police, Stock Department, —- all important services which admit of very little curtailment—are liabilities taken over by the General Government when it assumed the functions of the abolished Provincial institutions, and which the Financial Eeform Association have absolutely overlooked, The Premier's list of these oversights tots

np the formidable total of tSu* H. Atkinson's reply, iv short., makes it clear that the Association had only a very confused and imperfect comprehension of the services which have to be provided for, and as such ignorance is not uncommon, it may be well to point out that of the asked for to defray the cost of the administrative departments in 1888-89, three items alone, which are strictly business services rendered, and are revenue-producing, absorb .considerably more than one-half, viz., railways, ;£G90,000 ; education, ;/, 348,974 ; post-offices and telegraphs, making up a total of and leaving only ,£730,925 for Governor, Legislature, asylums, prisons, police, courts of justice, defence, lighthouso and other marine services, administration of Crown lands, and, in short, all the other administrative departments. No doubt, in such a vast organisation there is waste and extravagance. Every business man knows that even in his own small concerns such waste will take place, and only constant watchfulness _ can keep it down. As most business men have also found out, it is much more easy to set up a theoretical perfection than to attain it, and an intimate knowledge of detail is absolutely necessary before anyone can carry out drastic changes, without producing fatal confusion.