The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1910. MISREPRESENTATION ANSWERED

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7141, 31 May 1910, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1910. MISREPRESENTATION ANSWERED

It is being represented in the columns of our junior contemporary that certain remarks made by the "New Zealand Times" early last year regarding the necessity for retrenchment in tho public servico are in conflict with the sentiment contained in an article upon the same subject published at the beginning of this month- Our woebegono fi'iends have discovered that on January 19th, 1909, we declared that the Government had caught the spendthrift infection . . • . and had proceeded with an expenditure which cannot bo sustained without detriment to the community

and should at once grapple with tho abuses that had grown up in fat and careless years. It is pointed out that our argument for' retrenchment was then based on two reasons: (1) Becauso the public service was over-staffed and wasteful; (2) because efficiency could bo maintained dospite a wholesale contraction of departments. Having thus recalled tho zeal for economy displayed by this paper eighteen months ago an extract from our article of May 7th is reproduced .with the announcement that " the public may be trusted to draw the only possible conclusion." This reckless trust in the public will probably move the democracy to tears, but, unfortunately, we are not told what the conclusion is. However, this is tho quotation supposed to establish our change of front:

Anyone can understand a commercial firm whose shrinking transactions warned them of a bad year deciding to adjust their wages-book to the altered conditions. Common prudence would compel them to do this, tor manifestly Bince the trade was falling it would not be necessary to employ so many wage-earners as before. But in tho event of their business growing instead of showing the retrograde movement looked for, can it be supposed that sane individuals would feel themselves bound as by an oath to beat their expenditure down to tho figure agreed upon . . . . ? We hardly think so. . . . The Government found iteelf very much in the same position.

Now, we can have no possible obj ection to even this fragmentary method of recalling to the community what we have had to say about retrenchment in theory and practice. There is one, very simple reason why this should bo our attitude, and it is this: That no conflict of views as is alleged by the prosecution is revealed in the extracts quoted. "We stand to-day by tlie opinions expressed in January, 1909, and invite our contemporary to disprove their truth if it can. We also insist upon the fairness of what was said last month in this column, and suggest .that if there are any valid arguments at the disposal of the Opposition to controvert it thoy should bo produced. It may bo as well that we should recall to our readers the progress of the retrenchment controversy, and in referring to the task undertaken ;by the Government indicate the kind of criticism it has had to meet. At the beginning of 1909 retrenchment was "in the air," and this paper suggested that the Ministry could with advantage proceed to a departmental cleaning-up by which weeds and barnacles might be removed from many holes and corners in which thoy had accumulated. Two or three montEs later the Prime Minister announced that this course would be followed. He was quito candid about the matter, and declared that the tendency to over-man the service required to be checked and the work of the departments reviewed. He promised to save .£250,000 a year. This promise he has redeemed. Had he not done so the " New Zealand Times" in common with other supporters of the Government would have "been compelled to subject,him to the criticism his evasion of duty demanded. The criticism levelled at him by the Opposition organs "just now is largely composed of fiction. What has happened is that in eight departments of tho public service retrenchment was effected to the extent of .£210,223, but in two other departments—the working railways and post and telegraph office—there was such an unlooked-for, and, of course, gratifying increase in traffic and business that increased expenditure had to be met. What our disingenuous friends are doing is to add the whole of the departmental votes for 1908 together, do the same for 1809, and then hold up their hands in pious horror at the quarter-million mark not having been reached. Tho .£250.000 could have been saved (1) If the railways had stagnated and the post and telegraph service had shown no growth, or (2) If the Government had strangled the railways (and invited criticism of "bad management" owing to the poor showing for the year) land done the same at the post office. It cannot be denied that £210,223 was I saved in eight departments, nor do we think it can be believed by even the maddest of our citizens that it would have been anything but folly to have gone to the full quarter-million by reducing expenditure in other departments from which the public were making demands for increased conveniences. This is the line of argument we were following in the article from which the last of the extracts quoted this morning was taken. The meaning will be seen more clearly if we give another quotation from the same source: j

If the worfc on the railways had. been less, if the Post Office had stayed in the nit, if the depression had lasted and the Native Department had slumbered all ■would have been well—becanse there would hare been £250,000 "saved!" This Is the underlying meaning of what the discontented economists have attempted to ten as. The jeal retrenchment

of £210,223 in eight departments and the demands for additional services in other directions where " economy" would havo been the most wilful extravagance avo disregarded. Can these fault-finding skinflints show that there should have been a cutting: down of expenditure amounting to i'39,777 ill two departments which gave the country £365,254 more income than in the previous year and that the native land problem should have been loft to hibernate? If not they fail to prove their case, and will have to depend upon inero snarling to carry conviction.

Instead of replying to this by argument, the skinflints retort by saying

" Why you yourself admitted waste and extravagance a year i;go." 01' course we did—and the answer is that it has been lopped off to the extent of .£210,223 in eight separate departments. Our friends are baying at the moon. Will they tell its exactly what they are grumbling about? If they are angry at the railways and post office having given a much-increased revenue and at the Ministry exhibiting a praiseworthy activity in regard to native laud settlement their complaint would be more easy to understand and moro simple to argue about than is the parading of little bits of print chopped out of "New Zealand Times'" articles.