The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-08-12

We POSITIVELY assert that we neither heard
nor felt it. But what is the use OF arguing with
or contradicting public opinion? There was a
shock, and a heavy one too, they say. The
great pendulum felt it most remarkably, and as
a natural phenomenon it made the great govern
ment crab change in an instant the old twenty
five years retrograde movement into a forward
one,-wonderfnl to relate and hardly to be
credited, but it is SO, nevertheless. The policy
of economy has been initiated. The electric
fluid in it's subtle and wonderful power laid
several heads low in the dust near Aliiolani
House in one stroke of lightning, and no coroner
was called to hold an inquest. The Offices of
Road Supervisor, Superintendent of Water
Works and Clerk of the Market, and Superin-
tendent of Public Works, for which there has
been paid in the aggregate the sum of SIS, 200
per annum, have been merged in one, at a salary
of So, 300, which will effect a biennial saving of
$4,000. Certainly not a very bad beginning.
We have not been in the habit of late of singing
the praises of the Ministry, and although the
measure did not originate with them but with
the opposition, We must do them the justice to
say that they supported it. We cannot but
rejoice at this commencement of an effort at
economy by merging several Offices in one, where
it can be done without detriment to the public
service.
1t is said-though perhaps only a hope ex-
pressed-that their Excellencies intend following
up this new begun process of retrenchment by
merging Offices, by a recommendation that the
three Ministerial Departments of Foreign Affairs,
Finance and Interior, be consolidated into one,
and to do so by making one Minister take charge
ad interim (until the Constitution can be
amended) of the other two departments. This
plan, when proposed, will deserve and shall
receive our heartiest support, as it will meet
with the fullest appreciation of the public. No
one doubts that one able Minister could as well
and honorably fulfill the duties of three depart
ments, as is now done by three individuals for
in fact each department is in charge of a COM
petent and experienced clerk, who, as is well
known, performs all the labor, while the prin-
cipals merely draw their salaries and do the
ornamental part of the work. This, one man
could perform quite as efficiently as three and
as the peoples purse has become very much
depleted, it will be paying too dear for the
whistle to expend so large an amount of money
for mere ornamen The merging of the three
Offices would be a saving of S24 900
in the biennial appropriation, and undoubtedly
the new system would work admirably by abol-
much red tape, and giving to one person
a rapid and clear insight and oversight in the
three departments and the working of the whole.
A further biennial saving of Sc, 1000 could be
arrived at by abolishing the Office of Attorney
General, and giving the law business of the
government to some first class lawyer at an
annual salary Of s $500, and REMEMBERING
the supervision of the entire department of
police to the Marshal of the Kingdom.
This idea of merging the three Ministerial
Departments IN one is really a happy thought;
and if it emanated from the Ministers themselves,
is a noble and unselfsh effort for the benefit of
the country, whereby their Excellencies might
occupy a place in the worlds history by the side