PROVINCIAL AND COUNTY SYSTEMS.

Timaru Herald, Volume X, Issue 405, 14 April 1869, Page 3

PROVINCIAL AND COUNTY SYSTEMS.

[From the Otago Daily Times.} The opinion is rapidly gaining ground that the expenditure involved m the maintenance of our Provincial Government must he rigidly reduced. In the election addresses recently published, this opinion is expressed m very decided terms, expressed, too, m such a manner as to suggest the idea that no political reform coukl he more acceptahle to the electors. It is more than probahle that, if this reform is not taken m hand by the Council itself, it will soon become the basis of a ' cry' throughout the province. It will meet with resistance m one direction only. Those who adhere to extreme views on the subject of Provincialism will naturally regard a demand for retrenchment as a prelude to the demolition of the system. The system will be shorn of more than half its glory m their eyes, when it is no longer presented m public with all the paraphernalia to which we have been accustomed. The formal imitation of Parliamentary Government appears to them an essential feature of the original polity. They do not go back to the fundamental idea of Provincialism j they do not admit that it was simply intended to provide an efficient means of local administration. They affect to regard it with the same feelings of veneration which the most intense admirers of the British Constitution usually express for that form of Government; as if Provincialism, like the parent Constitution, had been the slow growth of centuries instead of the creation ot an hour ; as if, too, the merest details of its machinery had been developed by the patient toil of a long series of statesmen. Professors of this kind are obviously insincere, because there is no foundation for them. Provincialism may be modified to any extent, without rendering it inefficient so far as its primary purpose is concerned. It may be stripped of its ornaments and curtailed m its proportions, without losing its vital power and inherent energy. It may indeed gain by the apparent injury. For its greatest danger lies m its excess of ornament and pretension. Its costliness may be endured m prosperous times ; tut whenever retrenchment m public expenditure becomes a necessity of the times, Provincialism cannot hope,, to escape. It cannot run a greater risk than that of sudden and ill-considered efforts to retrench, brought about by the exasperation of delay. Not a few of our Constitutionalists would stand aghast at Mr ft! ' Lean's proposal to do away with the Speaker and the Usher of our Provincial Council, and to degrade the Superintendent into a Chairman. If there are two officers whose very titles are suggestive of parliamentary dignity, they are the officers whom Mr M'Lean proposes to dispense with. It would certainly not be consistent to dispense with them, and to retain the present mode of Executive administration. A change of Ministers every other session is m no respect essential to the proper conduct of affairs ; while the frequent recurrence of a " Ministerial crisis" must at least tend to provoke contempt for the whole system. The reform suggested by Mr M'Lean, if it should begin with the Speaker and the Usher, must logically conclude with the Executive. That would amount to a reconstruction of the system. Ultraprovincialists will tell us that such a reconstruction would not bring with it the remedy we expect. It would reduce the province to a county, involving the same extravagant rate of expenditure without possessing the same political power. Assertions of this kind must be expected, but they can deceive no one. A member of the House of Representatives, m a debate which took place during the last session, discussed the comparative cost of the provincial and county systems. He remarked : " I find that the administrative expenses of the province of Otago, leaving out the charges for surveys, engineering, and public works, amounted to £11,752." The items of expenditure were then read to the House, as follows : — Superintendent and Secretary £1,383 Provincial Secretary, Treasurer, and ) Q Knn Solicitor, with their clerks | 3>&OU Administration of Crown Lands 2,140 Sub-Treasurer, clerk, and cashier 1,150 Expenses for Council, excluding those ) g -yn for printing and stationery { ' £11,752 ' Now, Sir,' continued *he member, ' what are the expenses m the County of Westland under a system of government which is said to be expensive and surcharged with officialism, and which is said to offer no favourable comparison with provincialism ? I find that for the period of twelve months the amount voted is £2758, as against £11,752. I will read the items ; —

Chairman of Council £600 Secretary 500 Two Clerks 558 County Paymaster 400 Clerk 225 Expenses of Council 400 Clerk to the Council 75 £2,758 The retrenchment recently effected by the Provincial Government has considerably lessened the cost of provincialism to the people. But we are justified m saying tnat the work of retrenchment has been began at the wrong end. The abolition of minor offices and the reduction of salaries may save a good deal of money j but there is no certainty that this saving may not prove to be more apparent than real. It ten or twelve thousand pounds a year may be saved to the public exchequer by a stroke of the pen, it may be interred that either the previous rate of expenditure must have been extravagant m the last degree,or else that the economy has not been arrived at without some sacrifice of efficiency. These objections are inevitable m all cases of the kind. In the neighbouring colony of Victoria, we have a spectacle of retrenchment on a large scale which is not altogether pleasing to contemplate. Public servants of proved experience and ability have been dismissed right and left, and their places occupied by ' cheap and nasty ' substitutes. The public service must suffer from such a scheme of retrenchment; possibly to such an extent as to render the actual saving m salaries rather a loss than a gain to public interests. In our own case, the retrenchment must be taken m hand by the Provincial Council. It will no doubt be called upon to consider, m the course of the ensuing session, whether the task of administering our public affairs may not be safely entrusted to the permanent heads of departments, presided over by unsalaried officers. When the subject is once introduced to the notice of the Council, it will be found to be thoroughly ripe for consideration.