The Invercargill Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1862.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 11, 16 December 1862, Page 2

The Invercargill Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1862.

By what standard are the services of gentlemen engaged in public offices in the British Colonies judged ? Victoria pays her Governor at the rate of L 15,000 per annum; there is an island in another part of the world whose chief, also appointed by the British Crown, pockets about a sixtieth part of the above sum. Otago manages to find L6OO, a house, horse, fuel, and a servant for a Commissioner of Police. Southland, whilst its bellman can screw out something like L2OO a-year, asks an educated gentleman to undertake the duties of Police Magistrate for L 250. The necessaries of life, as well as the luxuries, vary in price in different quarters of the civilized world, but as f;ir as our own experience goes, Southland is not so cheap a place of residence as the banks of the Rhine or Boulogne, and, although quite ready to admit the necessity of economising the public funds, we cannot help thinking that a Province, whose revenue is so rapidly increasing, might find the means of making something like a fair exchange for services which require, to say the very least, talent of no inconsiderable amount, combined with a supply of patience which. lob himself would have envied. A Victorian Police Magistrate receives L 750 per annum ; let him take a trip to the south part of New Zealand, and in a country where his fair expenses will be about one-third more than they formerly were, a generous people will manage to raise for him a salary of loss than half his previous income In this matter, as in most, plain speaking is the best, and the subject one* placed in a fair light before the public will, there is but little doubt, receive all the attention it merits. '' Comparisons," says Mrs. Parti ngton, " are odorous.' 1 That respectable female displayed her good sense by the remark, and Southland men will see the force of the statement when they reflect thai the Chief Constable of the Province (worthy man) draws L2-JO, and rides a horse at the Government expense, whilst the gentleman before whom he hales his prisoners, metes out to them their deserts at the reduced rate of L2O per month without allowances. It matters not whether the affair rests with the General or Provincial Government, our object is to call the attention of the pnbMc to the subject, and to find out whether they consider the Police Magistrate should continue to dispense justice, and pet through an amount of business of the utmost importance to the community, for a consideration less than a good clerk would receive in an Invercargill store of any size.