THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1887.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLX, Issue 8163, 15 August 1887, Page 4

THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY).

MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1887.

WftK which are incorporated tut TVellingtoi, Independent, established 1845, and the New Zealander,

Mb Beodie Hoaee, whose “ N otes on New Zealand ” we reprinted in our issue of Thursday last, has told New Zealanders some very ivholesome home truths. His natural shrewdness, aided by the commercial acumen necessarily acquired by extensive experience In a large London business, has enabled him promptly to Jut the blot in our political system over-government. He very tersely and happily sums up our actual requirements in the way of Governmental machinery. “ A few policemen with walking-sticks and two or three men of business to look after the finances, would do all New Zealand requires, and do it tetter." That is most true. If we were called upon to suggest a system of radical reform in New Zealand politics, and were assured that means should be found to carry out our suggestion, we could instantly offer one of a most simple, compendious, and entirely satisfactory character, which would commend itself to everybody who is not either an actual or an intending professional politician. Our plan would be merely to suspend the whole elaborate and costly machinery of government, and to invest his Excellency Sir William Jervoia with full and absolute control, for say five years, just such as he would exercise were he at the head of a large private business. That would be our panacea for the present political ills. We only need a capable man to take charge of our affairs, which are really of no greater magnitude than those of many private businesses, and are indeed immeasurably smaller in financial dimensions than such a concern as that of the late Herr Krupp of Essen, for instance. One good man could and would do all we want with a capable staff of perma hent officers under him. It is the parody of real politics, the idle frippery of political machinery, the puff and bombast and imitation with which our system is stuffed that runs away with the money and time and opportunities, and opens a convenient door for the entrance of corrupt abuses such as those so pointedly and truly referred to by Mr Hoare. As a Colony we are “ too big for our boots/’ and we waste precious time over all sorts of Utopian or chimerical or supererogatory proposals and theories and schemes to the neglect and prejudice of the plain, matter-of fact, unromantic business which ought to engross the attention of a young community. What do we really want with our 50 Legislative Councillors, out 95 members of the House of JSepresentatives, our eight Ministers, our crowd of Parlia mentary officials, in addition to the huge army of Civil Servants and the multitude of municipal authorities with a population only of a moderate - sized European city ? The disproportion of administra tive paraphernalia to our actual requirements is ludicrously preposterous. One good Governor is all we in reality require. Of course this suggestion that we could make, if we were asked, is quite Utopian and impracticable. Unhappily we are quite aware of that. But if it could only be carried out it would be the best thing for the Colony, which then would be “ tun ” on strictly common-sense and businesslike principles. At the same time we are free to confess that we should not at all care to see such powers entrusted to every representative of Her Majesty who has occupied Government House. They assuredly could not have been entrusted to Sir Arthur Gordon, for instance, nor are we quite sure that Sir James Fergusson would have made a very acceptable Dictator. But we entertain little doubt that either Lord Normanby or Sir Hercules Sobinson or Sir William Jervoia could “run” the Colony at a vast saving of expense and as large an increase in efficiency. As, unluckily, we are debarred from adopting such a radical and effective mode of retrenchment and reform, the next best thing is to reduce the numerical strength and the cost of the existing system to the lowest possible point; to eschew political “ feds,” emotional or chimerical politics, and the silly mockery of socalled “ party ” Government, and to use every effort to suppress that ex pensive and obstructive nuisance, the professional politician.