CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

Colonist, Volume XXX, Issue 5024, 6 October 1887, Page 3

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

(From the' Evening Post.') If Major Atkinson return! to office, be will no doubt bring buck with him the celebrated report on Civil Service Reform which was furnished by Messrs. Seed and Batkin shortly before the general election in 1884, and which he persisted in treating bs a private and confidential document, instead of a public record. Although removed from ihs Ministerial pigeonholes, no doubt Major Atkinson has retained the precious document in some private repository of its own. Whether it has got stale, or has improved by keeping, we cannot of course tell, but certainly Major Atkinson has had ample time, to fully consider all its recommendations or suggestion, and he ought now to be abJt to bring a very mature judgement to bear on the question which will necessarily occupy a .prominent place in the policy of any new Ministry as being inseparably conneoted with the subject of retrenchment. The public and the Seivioe have all alosg been curiously amious to sea this report, and although its iptissima xerba may not even now be published, Boma idea of its nature is pretty sure to be gleaned from the speeches and proposals of Major Atkinson if he regains office. We really pity the Civil Service. It will have to bear and suffer much during the next few_mohtus, and ' probably neither the »?" Mioistty nor th« new members will be inclined to Bhow it much consideration.. It is always easy, and in some degree popular, to attack tbe Civil . • Service'; and we fear that it will be made the first sacrifice at the shrine of retrenchment, without much care being given to theq.uatiori whether the reductions propoEed.. ara^ either wise or fair. Major Atkinson is not. a Minister from whom the Service -has ':ab|f .„„ v thing to hope:or in tb« way *ot ttomymSt'}* * of its interes ; or con«idt|»\i^tOT,Mli|Jiii'fe- ** " ". ■ .*":-%*\