HANSARD.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6964, 2 November 1909, Page 7

HANSARD.

(To tlu Editor "N.Z. Timta."/ Sir, —Will) your comments on the wiii-tefnl expenditure in connection with "ii:ui.->anl” everyone rvill agree. In salaries alone tve pay a Ison t .EMfid a. your, and much more in printing and diel rihution, and miteli more still t \n waste of Parliament’s time. ‘ lis pleasant. sure, to see one's name in print,” but this vanity is dearly bought with the people's money. In these (lays of retrenchment one, would nava tliought that “Hansard ’ was a lair field for the cutting down process. In any case the very mechanical operation ot taking down shorthand notes and grinding them out on a typewriter is too highly paid, at from J-dO!) to J;.jUO a year. Compare that pay with tin- pay ot many of our headmasters ot State .schools, and the brain-rusting eraployiuont cf a ‘'Hansard” reporter, v itu the capacity and activity oTintellect refjtiircd iu our college professors an<l schoolmasters! . Then, boo, these- “Hansard reporters have the whole of the Parhamentary recess to sleep through; though their somnolence is broken in upon at times bv a call to act as secretary for stray conferences or Royal Conimifisiouer.-?, for which they get ices and travelling expenses, supplementary to their high salaries, to the detriment of unemployed clerks and reporters, . Though a position on Ha-nsara is regarded as the romance of. the Civil Service, still : nt is a publication that should be, not suppressed,- but .much curtailed, and I would suggest that a select committee of the House should oe set up to consider th e question. 1 am, e^c ECONOMICS. Newtown, October 27tb.