The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1893.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 291, 8 December 1893, Page 2

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

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1893.

For th» oiiuse that lacks assiataucs, lor tho TOms that noedo roaistaneo, Tor the future in the distance. And ths good that we can ao.

A cable message from Adelaide i n our last night's issue stated that the Imperial Government had been notified that in future the salary paid to the Governor of South Australia would be only .£4,000 a year and £1,500 allowances, instead of the £5,000 a year and allowances hitherto paid. Victoria has also resolved to cut down its Governor's salary from £10,000 to £7,000, and also to reduce the extravagant allowances made for the maintenance oi the huge com-

fortless building which Parliament in the days of profusion erected for the accommodation of Her Majesty's representative. In adopting these measures, our neighbours are following the lead given by New Zealand, and the South Australians are improving upon it by making the salary a year less than we still pay. When Lord Onslow first arrived in New Zealand, it may be remembered, he jocularly alluded to himself as the first of the cheap Governors. It is evident that he will not be the last. Perhaps the colonies have not much to plume themselves upon in their present strivings after greater simplicity of life ; these efforts are the offspring of a stern necessity. The great body of colonists, we fear, especially in Victoria, where the spirit of luxuriousness was developed in an especial degree, are as willing as ever to " go the pace," but they have not the resources to sustain it. Probably few effects of our adversity are so little to be deplored as that which is tending to put an end in all the colonies to a shoddy reproduction of the " society " which finds its central sun in royalty. New Zealand has not had much to complain of in the shape of stimuluses to extravagance emanating from Government House. Some of our best paid Governors have shown a wonderful faculty for taking care of their money ; but even in the small towns where the Governor is accustomed to reside for any length of time, there is a tendency to create what is known as a "Government House set," comparatively nless perhaps when on so ridicukm.-iiy diminutive a scale as we have been accustomed to, but still not wholly without mischief in promoting extravagance and undesirable class distinctions at the Seat of Government. All of the great Australian capitals, however, have suffered from this evil in an intense form, and if one effect of the prevailing depression there be to promote a return to that simplicity of life and lack of ostentation which befits a colonial community, they wili not have suffered in vain.

The salaries of Governors were at the outset based upon the high rate which had become very reasonably established in connection with the administration of wealthy provinces of India and tropical colonies, where a Governor could not remain for more than a very few years, and had to be well paid in consideration of the shortness of his term of service, and the probability of his return with shattered health. But surely nothing in present - day circumstances of New Zealand justifies the payment of a salary of ,£5,000 a year and allowances for an officer whose duties are almost purely ornamental, while the Imperial Government paid its first military genius, Sir Garnet Wolseley, only a year for discharging the onerous duties of Adjutant-General. We believe that a year and residence would be an ample salary for the Governor of New Zealand, and that such a salary would be much more in keeping with the _£i,ooo a year—a sum at least -£500 too small—

iiicb we pay our Premier, upon whom the real cares of the Government of the country devolve, and the a year which is paid to the Chic/ Justice of the colony. We hope that the Government will make some move in this direction. Of course no change that may be made could affect the present holder of the office. We are in honour hound to pay till the end of his term the salary upon which he accepted the position ; but we should make an entirely new departure in dealing with his successor. *