TOWN EDITION. Evening Post. TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1881.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 34, 9 August 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. Evening Post. TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1881.

THE DEBATE ON THE ESTIMATES. A preliminary skirmish took place in the House last night on the question whether or not a hard and fast rule of general reduotion should be insisted on before dealing with the Estimates in detail. The discussion arose on an amendment moved by Mr. Thomson, the member for Clutha, on the motion for gong into Committee of Supply, to tho effect that the aggregate amount of all Civil Service salaries above is2oo should be red uced by 10 per cent. This proposal, it will be remembered, or one to much the same purport, was understood to be under ttie consideration of the Government while the Estimates were in course of preparation. We alluded to it at the time, and expressed our strong dissent from tho course suggested, as we have from the first to the arbitrary and inequitable all-round 10 per cent, reduotion. To that view we still entirely adhere. Wo are sorry to see that there is considerable diversity of opinion among hon. membera on this point. Mr. 'I HOMSOn's amendment was rejected by a mojority of five, but the division list shows a curious "mixing-up " of parties on the question. All the Ministers, it is true, voted together against the amendment, but with them voted Mr. De Latti our, Mr. GibBORNE, Mr. Hamlin, and Mr. Sheehan, who are by no means supporters of the Government, while the voteß on the othor side included Mr. Ftjlton, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Murray, Mr. Saundebs. Mr. Shvanson and Mr. Wright, who usually go into the Ministerial lobby. This plainly shows that the House is not inclined to treat tho voting of the supplies as an ordinary party question No definite result was arrived at, excepting that iv the end it was agreed to debate these whole matters f nlly at an early date, when a full House should be present. A warm discussion may therefore be expected on the whole question of retrenchment, and particularly on the proposal to repeat that very clumsy form of it whioh was tried last year— the 10 per cent, reduction. It is not necessary to recapitulate the arguments which we have urged against this rule-of -thumb method of retrenchment. 'J he Premier, in last Friday's debate, very justly condemned the haphazard style of reduction advocated by some members, by pointing out that " any schoolboy could write =85 instead of J210," but that this wus not doing the work of retrenchment. But there was no greater statesmanship in writing £9 instead of iJIO, and Mr. Hall apparently forgot that this was what the Government in reality did last year, when they carried the 10 per cent, deduction There is no reason or justice in a Procrustean rule which stop 3 two shillings out of each pound due to every Civil Servant, irrespective of his being well or poorly paid. Nor is there any fairness in cutting down salaries at all unless these are found to be unduly high. In ssme instances this undoubtedly is the case, but we do not observe that these are proposed to be subjected to any graator reduction than other salaries which are palpably below the current rate of pay for the class of services remunerated. Ihis is where the especial injustice and hardship of an all-rouud reduction comes in It is quite right to reduce a salary if it is larger than a fair remuneration tor the service rendered. But it is not just to reduce a salary, while the same services as before are exacted and rendered, merely on the ground that the country i 3 less able to afford it, for that is, as we have previously pointed out, levying a very heavy income-tax on one particular class of the community. The argument that the country cannot afford to pay the same rate of salaries as formerly, is a perfectly fair one in favor of economising the public expenditure so far as possible. But that shou d be done by reorganisation and consolidation. It' the country cannot afford to pay for certain services it should dispense with them, but not receive the services and refuse to pay adequately for them. The 10 per cent, allround deduction is a simple levying of blackmail. Confining its operation to salaries above on.y mitigates its severity en the one hand by enhancing its unfairness on the other. From every point of view it is j utterly indefensible. It is the duty of the Government to carry out the details of retrenchment and to make reductions in all salaries that are unduly high. The present Ministry is the only one that has hitherta done anything at all in this direction. Yet even they seem disposed to halt on tho threshold, and to shrink from completing this painful but necessary work they have begun. All their ingenious arguments fail to convince us that a great deal more cannot still be done in the way of diminishing the number and amount of many of the higher salaries. The Colony conld manage with far fewer Under-Secretarioa and Inspectors, whoso duties in some cases seem confined to the compilation of huge masses of indigestible statistics, which hardly possess an atom of human interest for a single person on earth. Let us do without these dreary statistics and save the cost alike of their compilation and their printing. This is but one illustration. There are others in abundance. A large amount of the clerical work done in the various Government Departments is wholly supererogatory. Cut down this instead of the salaries of the men who do it. Thon again wheie is the justice of arbitrarily reducing tho pay of the police by sixpence a day ? It cannot be urged for a moment that they are over-paid. They are among the public officers who have to do tho hardest, most onerous, and most repugnant work of the public service. Nojnst.cause has been shown for reducing the ; r pay, and we hope the House will set its face against it. There are many salaries, ranging from .£4OO a year upward, which are unquestionably higher than wonjd ba paid by private employers for similar work. Ist thg^s and the Eateries of tho more "ornamental" officers be reduced to such a rate of pay as is ascertained to be in accordance with the rates ruling outside the service. Let this be (done, and at the same time extend the work of amalgamation and consolidation of offices. Much of this hqa been accomplished and there is room for a gre^t deal more, but, in the name of common fairness and horißSsy, let us have no repatitiou of last year's pubfip scandal — the indiscriminate 10 per cent. re» duction.