RETRENCHMENT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 961, 27 November 1879, Page 2

RETRENCHMENT.

Retrenchment is at last claiming some attention m Wellington. This is a favourable sign. To submit proposals increasing the taxation of the country by about a million sterling without at the same time manifesting the slightest desire to reduce the wild extravagance which has made such a step necessary, is a proceeding m the highest degree reprehensible. During the last ten years of. recklessness the charges upon the country have grown at a frightful ratio, and simultaneous with any effort to meet them by increasing the burdens on the people there should be an honest effort to bring down the gross amount through reductions m the expenditure. We use the word " honest " advisedly, as distinguished from mere sham pretence to save appearances. We do not want a few underpaid and overworked public officers victimised that fat sineciu'ists and political pets may remain undisturbed. That is the usual outcome of proposals for retrenchment. Savings must begin at the top — the very top. His Excellency's £7, 500 would be none the worse of a little paring. But leaving that alone — for we presume with the present holder of the office the faith of the colony is m a measure pledged — the next rung m the social and political ladder should not escape. Ministers might set an example of economy and earnestness by throwing off all their recompense over £1,000, a very handsome sum. If they have thereby to economise a little m social indulgences and courtesies, it will but be m accord with the proper spirit of the times and may inculcate maxims of prudence m others. The residences, which cost the colony a thousand a year at least m sheer waste on lackeys, ought certainly to go, and with them the Government steamers. Ministers will do very well out of their four guineas a day travelling expenses even though they have to pay their own steamboat fares and hotel bills. The colony is m no need of peripatetic grandees, and the class of steamers now performing our coastal service maintain communication speedly enough and frequent enough for any possible contingency that can arise. A real budget of reform, commencing with the announcement of these savings, might with grace descend to the lower grades and apply the knifo.f reefy to unfruitful excrecences

that have grown up on the body politic. We do not believe m shaving down the salaries of a few minor clerks with large families and small resources, nor do we hold with the stopping of their wellearned increase. Retrenchment to be worth anything must be on a different scale, and more systematic than this. All salaries over a certain moderate sum should be subjected to a fixed per centage of reduction, all unnecessary offices should be abolished, and the hours m some departments, especially those concentrated m and around " the largest wooden building m the world," miglit be lengthened to ordinary business hours. We know of a Department m which the head has repeatedly represented to the Government that a waßte of some thousands a year. was going on, and urged its reduction with avail. Instead, continual additions were made for political purposes. The instance is not an isolated one. The public service has been used as a political tool, m which hard-working, industrious officers without influence have had little or no chance of attaining to any distinction, and extravagance has accompanied incompetence. We believe that, without causing the slightest hardship, from £150,000 to £200,000 might be saved on the estimates, and we hope that after the debate last night the Government will attempt to lead the House m the direction which it professes to* be desirous of doing, by bringing down some systematic proposal to accomplish those savings which ought to be made. *~