WASTED MONEY.

Northern Advocate, 13 August 1913, Page 4

WASTED MONEY.

In some of its aspects Parliament is a great glaring absurdity, and in none more so than where the expenditure of public money is concerned. It will be seen to-day that the cost to the country of Royal Commissions from 1902 to 1912 amounted to the staggering total of £62,445, or over six thousand pounds a year—approximately £120 a week, or £17 per day. This money has, for all practical purposes, been wasted as effectually as if it had been thrown into the sea, for it is notorious that Royal Commissions are of all possible futilities the most futile. Yet though this is recognised nowhere more fully than in the Legislature itself, a veritable mania exists for appointing these useless, extravagant tribunals. Let there be sufficient noise made about any subject—let any question be too difficult for a Ministry to handle —let the occasion arise for throwing dust in the eyes of the community—then immediately we have a Royal Commission prowling about the country at enormous cost to the taxpayers, a mountain of evidence is accumulated, and then the whole business is dropped into oblivion. If we add to the cost of Parliament —£70 an hour—the cost of Royal Commissions at the rate of £ 120 a week, it will be seen that the charge on the taxpayers for the mere machinery of government is something in the nature of being

colossal