THE SERFS OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7658, 8 June 1886, Page 3

THE SERFS OF NEW ZEALAND.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—ln the colonies, where labour ik aspiring to take preference of capital, by the working man dictating to his master not only the amount of his daily remuneration but the number of hoars he shall work for such, it does seem strange to hear session after session tho members of the House of Representatives clamouring for reductions in the Civil Service. For the last twelve years I have heard of little else, and being an old Civil servant of the mother country, where they treated their officers as gentlemen and with due consideration, I cannot understand it. Each successive Government have now for years tried their hands to reduce the Civil Service, and have made alterations and ordered dismissals much against their judgment and conscience. Yet no sooner are they in opposition to the Government of the day, than they are the first to demand further reduction to what they themselves had found unwise to make. If they imagine they please the public by all this, they never made a more fatal mistake, for their constituents, although advocates of strict economy, are also advo. cates of fair play, fair remuneration to all, and look with perfect disgust on men who, receiving at tho rate of £800 per annum out of the public revenue—not to mention other pecuniary advantages —can advocate the cutting-down of the salaries of officials whose duties at times are most onerous. What is the House of Representatives but an assemblage of the Civil servants of the publio—men entrusted for the time being in framing just laws for the colony, consequently, if the Civil Service—the serfs of New Zealand—require such continual pruning, let them begin on their own salaries, regulating the rise and fall of the same on the price of beef and mutton, as actually suggested during the present session. This is the sort of claptrap on which members of the House waste the time allotted for the session to legislate for the good of the colony, consequently, have to rush all their Bills through in the last day or two, when half the members have left for their homes. If they would but establish a property and income tax, so that each individual paid towards the Government of the colony his due share, there would be income enough and to spare without much further borrowing ; but, as this would touch the pockets of our representatives themselves, we never hear the subject mooted. Again, as the revenue from the sale of spirituous liquors has seriously diminished, the advocates of total abstinence must be anxiously expecting farther taxation, knowing well that the amount must be made good.—l am, &c, Fair Plat.