PUBLIC OFFICES—REDUCTION AND EFFICIENCY.
NEW Times.—When the subject of retrenchment in the civil department was talked of, in the commencement of the Duke of Wellington's Adminis- tration, we pointed out what we are still inclined to look on as the most fea- sible and proper mode of effecting it. Our plan was,- not to reduce salaries.• but to reduce numbers. Where there are at present twelve clerks we would discharge six, add fifty per cent. to the salaries of the remainder, and double their labour. By this means the public would save a fourth, the clerks would gain a third, and the work would be done as well as it is now. . The e error of the system is the introduction, with very little consideration of the real demand for them, of a number of junior clerks. It is not to be wondered, when there is such a superfluity of expectant., that promotion should be slow. By keeping down their numbers, by exacting higher requi- sites on admission, and by giving better pay, the public would be in reality cheaper, as we!I as better served. Of course any such reduction as we re- commend must be the work of time, and while it is in progress, some of the patronage of tile heads of establishments must be surrendered, but the Duke of Wellington, of all men that have presided over the Councils of the country, perhaps for a hundred years, can best dispense with petty patronage. He is too powerful in himself to stand in need of such adventitious aid.
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