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Otago Daily Times, Issue 14002, 7 September 1907, Page 9

TRAVELLING ALLOWANCES. The discussion in the recent debate in the House of Ropresontatives upon the question of travelling allowances paid to- offioials in the public service was characterised by a good deal of vagueness on each side. Beyond a certain point -its criticism was liardly less indefinite than its defence. It was clearly a case where more information was a very desirable requisite. Tho request of Mr Massoy and his friends for enlightenment was very proper in view of discoveries that have been made. Tho other day it was the ease of a Customs expert who, in addition to his snlary of £800 a year, had boon receiving from some remote period 30s a day, Sundays included, >f for travelling expenses irrespective of whether lie travelled or not. As an oxcuso for the fact-that thoy were unaware of the survival of this comfortahlo little arrangement tho Prime Minister and the Minister in charge of the Customs Department had to toko refugo behind the circumstances that they wero not responsible for it and that it happened very'long ago. It is possible to get accustomed to many things that appear extraordinary;, at first sight;, /neverthe-

loss public confidence in the supervision exercised over the civil service expenditure certainly received at* this explanation something of a shook. Now another case of somewhat similar nature, in that it include? tho payment of travelling allowances on ,th'e same liberal scale, has boon unearthed, and there havo boon more awkward questions to answer in the House. From ■' Lei's be Customs experts" the quip lias varied to "Let's be District Court judges." It appears from an answer.giyen to the member for Christchurch North by the Primo Minister on Wednesday that in his capacity of District Court judge Mr Hasolden receives £750 per annum as salary and also a. travelling allowance at tho rate of £1 lis 6d per day for' every day in the year. Surely there is something lofty and fine about a system, of tins sort, under which no paltry questions are put as to whether an official travels or .not or as to what aro his actual travelling expenses, but an amount considerably more than double that'paid to many a civil servant of long service is paid him. annually to meet the vague demands of his pilgrimages. The system has unfortunately tho drawback that it is unable- to justify itself as a reasonable and .equitable manner of paying a salary. It fails to disclose the actual amount of : salary to the public, for it is one thing to know that an individual receives £750 a year as salary, and another to know that lie receives in addition to that a. travelling allowance of £580 a year. If an official's salary is not large enough it should, of course, bo increased, tint the misleading method of increasing it by virtue of a luxurious travelling allowance, though nice and simple, lacks other recommendations. It will be generally agreed that travelling expenses should bo what everybody understands by the expression. In the rdther amusing discussion in the Houso Sir Joseph Ward said' he proposed to remove the impression being spread throughout the colony that something wrong was going on. But tho Prime Minister, whoso assertion that tho Government had nothing to cover up or to bide in this matter was an answer to a charge never seriously made we imagine, failed in his explanation to remove tho impression that tho system attacked is wrong in principle. However, it is so far satisfactory that the Prime Minister agrees that there should bo an inquiry into these matters, upon whioh, as we remarked before, there sooms to be among members of Parliament a sad lack of exact knowledge. We hope the committee which it is proposed shall investigate the whole matter will not bo too narrow in the scope of its inquiiy. 'Sir Joseph "Ward must himself have felt that, to reply to Mr T. Mackenzie's allegations as to extravagant methods by explaining why allowances were given for travelling that did not take place was a rather unsafe factory process.