THE New Zealand Herald. MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1875.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4298, 23 August 1875, Page 2

THE New Zealand Herald. MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1875.

, < , When some private person 'is in posses- ' sion of an estate, and ho desires to ascer- [ tain at tho ond of tho year what income > he may calculate upon receiving the " one which is to follow it, in order that he may determine his expenditure, ho makes

his estimates, just as the Minister of a Government makes bis. But here ends all comparison between the two. The individual, if he be a prudent man, should he find his estate.encumbered with a heavy debt, will, to use a common expression, "draw in," by cutting down expenditure wherever this can be effected..B[o will dispense with the services of all ho can possibly do without. He will reduco tho salaries «I those which will stand reducing without doing an injustice, or impairing the usefulness of the servant. Ho will discharge his butler, as not being a necessary appendage to his ihousehold, and probably make the footinaYi.do his work. Ho will put up with a less costly professional cook, and he will arrange that the groom of liia stables shall also do duty as coachman. But he will not seek to lower the already small wage of rtho kitchen maid, the hall porter, or the under gardener.

The reverse of all this appears to be the case with colonial Governments —at least with some of them, and most notably our own. Wo hare before us the printed estimates of revenue and expenditure for the year ending tho 30th June, 1870. The total estimated revenuo is £2,355,747, while the total expenditure is estimated at jC4,079,11C. Tho surplus expenditure over income lias of course to bo drawn out of loans. When the loans are exhausted wo may naturally suppose that surplus expenditure will have to bo obtained from some other source. Perhaps income, or property, or land, or increased Customs duties. It may bo any one or all of these, if Parliament should lend its sanction. Where it will bo drawn from, should Parliament not consent, we are unabl to say. Perchance from tho treasures which lie at present concealed below tho surface of the earth, or, perhaps, from loans which may yet hare to bo negotiated. We find that under the head of "Permanent Charges" we shall have to pay noxt year °£955,C70 for inte-est and sinking fund on our loans. Let us say in round numbers, and not to put too fine a point on things, one million sterling. Tho salaries and expenses of public departments are set down at £74,459 lis. 9d. But then there are departments which do not come under the head of "public;" such, for instance, as that of tho Colonial Architect, to which £1800 will bo paid in the shape of salaries alono, and £21,491 for other purposes—thoso of Ministerial residences, furniture, improvements to Government House ; an Admiralty house, Ac. Tho passage money for members coming from their hearths and homes at a distance is £1050. For after expenses of members of both Houses, £10,500. Altogether, allowing for cheap food at "Bellamy's" for members' use, £25,040 2a. Tho two shillings shews how very exact, and may we say with such a strict regard to economy, these estimates have been prepared. Tho cost of the Government printing department is set down at £10,130, which, however, does not include paper, binding, and ruling. This calls for another £5000. There are a few miscellaneous items of expenditure which it may be considered by readers as trifling with them by rofering to, as for instance, expenses of tho steamer Luna, £7000; Inspector of Lunatic Asylums, £800; Inspector of Prisons, £000 ; purchase of steamer in addition to tho proceeds of tho sale of the Luna, £5000. The cost of conveyance of mails is estimated at £53,G48. There is an amusing contrast in the Estimates of the Postal department. Four clerks are to receive on tho aggregate £905, but the aggregate salary of 140 postmasters is set down at £1,170, which is as near as may £8 7s. l|d. for eacli of the 140 postmasters for a year's services, during which many letters containing matters of much importance, bank-notes and other valuables, pass through their hands. Tho cost of maintaining the Armed Constabulary is reckoned at £91,000; Militia, nearly £23,000 ; Law and Justice, £05,721. The estimate to defray tho salaries, contingencies, and expenses of the Native Department has been increased from £32,000 to £30,000, tho " native difficulty" becoming more costly to manage as years roll on. Tho estimato of expenditure chargeable on the Defence Loan is £05,000. The Colonial Treasurer has been very successful in reducing the salaries of some forty cadets by quite a3 much in the aggregate as £95, which helps in some small degree to make up the increase which has been given to thoso of the Civil Service who had before been only receiving from £400 to £500 per annum. The Colonial Architect has had his salary raised on the Estimates from £450 to £700, which can only be looked upon as very thoughtful and considerate on the part of one Colonial Treasurer for :: former brother Colonial Treasurer, who is now in England. The present Colonial Architect is, if we mistake not, tho father-in-law of Sir Julius Vogcl. This circumstance), however, is not mentioned in tho Estimates, and therefore is to be taken as a mere passing allusion and nothing whatever to do with salaries and allowances. A saving, wo observe, is to bo effected in the Immigration Department in one case of an under clerk by £10. The total grant to Provincial Services is £502,178, of which Auckland will only receive £3024, leaving out eleven shillings and tenpenco which is added to the larger sum, wo have no doubt for aomo wise reason, although it rr.ay bo inscrutable to all but Ministers themselves. The literature of figures as contained in a set of Government estimates, to the general reader is about as dry and uninteresting as the literature of letters as found in a lexicon. But there are thoso who look forward to tho publication of tho Estimates with intense interest. These are the civil servants. By tho Estimates they will be able to form an opinion whether their salaries will be increased, by which they may hope to indulge in some hitherto forbidden luxury, or to increase some much-needed item of domestic expenditure. Again, there is the fear, so frequently present to the mind, that some servant, or set of servants, in one or other of the departments will be dispensed with. That three offices will be merged into two, and the two offices will bo filled by one employee instead of two or perhaps three as before. Tho life of a civil servant is ever attended with a certain amount of anxiety, for the reason that ho can never feel any degree of certainty whether somo Joe Hume of , tho House will not riso and move for a I reduction of his annual salary. No men are more dependent on their superiors in offico than Government employees. Hence it is so common that while they are humblo and subservient to thoso who hold thepowerof their placein their hands, they relievo theirfeelingsby snubbing the public when they] think they dare do so withimpunity. Looking through tho Esti- | mates in detail, wo find there is a general tendency to increaso by largo additions tho sums of tho higher class of officials and to reduce those of the lower grades ; or, at tho best, to allow them to stand at tho old figure.

We may reasonably ask Ministers whether the idea has never entered tlieir minds to obtain tho sense of the wholo constituencies whethor the Abolition and Local Governmeut

Bills should pass in the present Parliament, or be relegated to a new one to be dealt with? -This coold 'be done by a printed slip, obtainable upon .application by every elector in the colony.,". The chairmen of "the Highway Board* in-thesnburban and country districts, and the mayors; of the Municipal and BorouA CoaLTidls, covjd made-to undertake £he duty Vf recording the ayea and noes. The question would ba a very short one^—" Are yo« in favour of the Abolition and Local Government Bills being dealt with in the present or.a new Parliament." All the answ«r required would be a Biraple "Yea" or»"No.'" It may be urged that this should have been done before. But it is not oven now too late. There is abundance of work before Parliament, and the two bills could well stand over until a plebiscite had been taken. Iu all -countries under free Government it is quite common, when great Constitutional changes are proposed, to take tho voice of the people -in some such form as that proposed. Ministers, by adopting such a course, would not imperil their popularity as they are doing at present.

The London Time* would appear to be taking a growing interest in the progress of tho colonics. In an article detailing the special virtues of each of the colonies, and their adaptability respecti voly for the absorption of capital and labour, tde "Thunderer" remarks:—"Surely, there are many thou sands of good people here, whether educated or not, whether genteel or homely, who would be able to enjoy life, make their way, and pay their way too, much better in one of these colonies than at home? In an old country like ours, full of rich people, even the poor spend a large part of their income iu keeping up appearances, and in hiring servants to do for them what they can do just as well, or better, themselves. In the Australian colonies there are many thousands of persons who are thero called, and justly called, gentlemen and ladies who have no servants at all; the class abov<3—that is, thoso who have somewhat better means— have one serv.int-of-all-work, and that rather a companion than a servant ; while few, indeed, and to be counted, are the households in which there are more than one servant. The indoor man-servant is almost unknown. The result is that no kind of household work is degrading there; the women have something to do, and, what is more than all, the children have at home the most useful of education, beginning with their earliest years. They have not to look out for amusement, or rather their friends have not to look out for them, or even to buy toys for them. The children play at pots and pans, sweeping, dusting, washing, cooking, gardening, just as our village children do, only better, becauso their mothers are better educated than our own cottage mothers. They have all the use of toys and games without the fictitious and unreal clement, and can be at once serious aud lively. They have no occasion to learn dancing, deportment, or calisthenics. Their dolls a.e their own younger brothers and sisters. They get plenty of exercise, even if it rains, and even if the house be small, —a single room, perhaps. Nor is the work done in sullen silence, for the mothers are there, and the servants are her own children. Such was the custom of that antiquity which was the very school of manners, and where the highest cultivation could recreate itself with housework and industry which was common without being vulgar. Where all are thus employed there can be no disgrace, and no loss of caste. There is, too, less anxiety, for when people are doing their own work they have the less fear of descending lower, or of not being able to make all ends meet. As matters are naw in this country, the children of all but the working classes are brought up to avoid all manual work from a mere regard to appearances, when, no doubt, a good many of them have natural aptitude that way. Then there succeed one another the anxious, and often hopeless questions, how to amuse their children, how to occupy their hands aud their minds, how to keep them out of mischief, how to develop their affections, how to draw them out of themselves, and, iiually, how to teach them to get their own living, and be independent. All this is easy enough in the colonies, for it. is a necessity from tho very cradle, and there is no other course, and even if there be sometimes a great degree of isolation, there can hardly be more than the necessary isolation of a vast number of genteel householders iu English towns and villages, keeping up appearances, and avoiding vulgar associations, even at the cost of utter loneliness.

The bill introduced by Mr. Mervyn to the House of Representatives, and entitled in Hansard Goldtields Hill Xo. 2, has for its object to extend the quantity of land which may be taken up under the agricultural leasing system from '200 to 320 acres, and, secondly, to define the maximum amount of compensation which may be paid to pastoral tenants for land required for settlement under the agricultural leasing pystem on goldtields. The first object is not open to discussion, but tho second can hardly fail to provoke contention. The estimated equitable rental is stated to lie 7J per cent, of the value of the land held by the pastoral tenant. But it is said the pastoral tenants of the South hold the land at a mere "bagatelle," in some cases laying to the country not much more than what is known iu England as a peppercorn rent. The average rental paid by the pastoral tenant is said to be from one-ninth to one-sixth of the fair rental that would be chargeable according to the market value of the land. It is not clearly stated, though it is assumed, that this 7 J per cent, might form the basis of any such compensation. Tho question of maximum wa3 left to tho House. It could scarcely have been otherwise. But as to how the proposal will fare in committee it is not necessary to speculate. The "pastoral tenants" are powerful in Parliament, for the present at all events.

Bv the Marriage Act Amendment Bill just passed the Legislative Council, the Governor is empowered to appoint a Deputy-Registrar-General to act in case of illness or absence of the Registrar-General. Indexes are to be made of certified copies of entries of marriages forwarded to the Registrar-General, and any person, upon demand, may search such indexes, and hive a copy of tho record of any marriage under the hand of tho Registrar General. For every search in any index or marriage records in the office of the Registrar-General, a fee of 5s shall be paid by the person requiring such search; for every certified copy of any marriage entry in the records of his office, a fee of 2s Cd. shall be paid ; and if under the seal of tho Registrar-General, ss. Certified copies of marriage returns made or given by the Regis-trar-General, and purporting to be signed by him, shaVl be received as prima facie evidence in any Court of Justice within the colony of the fact of the marriage to which it relates having been solemnised.

The Hon. Mr. Bonar has introduced a bill into the Legislative Council to give a legal title aud status to the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, Mr. Wales has brought in a bill to the House of Representatives to provide for the incorporation of trustees of the "religious body known as the Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland." We had not previously heard of this distinction. But it should seem what was expedient for the local distinctions should also bo desired by tho General Assembly of that Church. The properties of the Church are not only considerable in extent, but very valuable all over the colony. All obstructions to the advantageous dealing with trust property for tho benefit of the whole body of the Church should be removed. Why, therefore, should two separate bills be requisite ?