FIFTY YEARS AGO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22954, 4 February 1938, Page 6

FIFTY YEARS AGO

GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC The problems which face the Gov* ernments of to-day also faced those of a past generation, the differences art one of degree, not of kind. Perhaps tlu chief problem is, and was, the question of wbqre the money is to come from* That the* New Zealand Government of fifty years ago was faced with this task is shown by the following extracts front a telegram received from the Welling* , ton correspondent of the New Zealaxs Herald, and published on February I, 1888: —"Now that the Ministers hare agreed upon their general scheme o! retrenchment some surprise is expressed that the details have not been madtf public. But why should Ministers be th» means of publishing their decision in respect of any civil servant other thaa the person immediately concerned. A very large proportion 6f the civil servants who will retire, temporarily or altogether from Government employ ment, reside in provincial districts outside Wellington This does no! exhaust the opportunity of retrenchment that is likely to arise jipon the working of the reduced departments." "The scale of travelling allowance! to judges' clerks and native interpreters connected with • the Native Lands Court has been revised. The sum paid out of the Treasury under this head during last year was £9OOO, and the Government has resolved to largely reduce this item for the future."