The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1879.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 340, 15 December 1879, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1879.

A Parliamentary Committee has reported favorably on the grievance of Mr Henry Jackson, late (Jhief Surveyor of the Province of Wellington. Mr Jackson has manv friends and acquaintances in the legislature, and his case was certain to be favorably presented and treated with consideration, The next question is that of compensation for Mr Jackson, and the civil servants of the colony ought to raise a testimonial to one who Ims shown them how the authority of a chief of a department, backed by the edict of a Minister can be brought to nothing by a parliamentary petition. An ordinary employer of labor, if he possesses a man who is not worth his money or does not suit hira, gives him his dismissal, and there is an end of the matter. Thejunfortunate Government are not in this position. They are compelled to keep their incompetent and unprofitable servants for their natural lives, and it is this tying of tho hands of the Government which makes the civil service in many instances a refuge for the lazy, needy, and destitute, No business in the coleny conducted on the Government system would prove a profitable one, A Cabinet Minister cannot dispense with the services of a superfluous or, useless messenger without an outcry from his uncle, cousin, or perhaps old aunt who has a seat both in the Legislature and in the Civil Service, the latter, however, being filled by a deputy duly nominated and installed. We think that some members of the Legislative Council who deprecated making a fuss about Mr Jackson on the ground of maintaining the discipline of the Civil Service were quite right, although the press at Wellington scouts the idea as frivolous, No one doubts that Mr Jackson, even if he carried out all the lawful commands of his chief, certainly did not execute them in a pleasant and agreeable manner. That he did not try to please or conciliate the head of the department was pretty evident. Under such circumstances Mr Jackson had only himself to thank if the head of the department got rid of him. The question the Assembly has decided has probably been one of red tape and regulation, The common sense of the Government will not, we trust, make a martyr of Mr JacLo t, He is an extremely fortunate man. He has a grievance which helped him to get a seat in the General Assembly and though he could not retain this seat he has been able to obtain from that exalted body a clean certificate showing that he has been a victim, and probably entitling him to money compensation, We fancy that the persecution to which Mr Jackson was, in the first instance subjected to by his superior officer, was the best thing that ever happened to him, and that other members of the Civil Service will beg and pray to be similarly treated.