who profit by the high rates which prevail in the Department of Public Works. If the money went to the bricklayer, the mason, or the carpenter, there would be less cause for regret; but the whole present system seems to have been invented solely for the benefit of that very unprofitable person, the artificial product of our mistaken school policy, the Munshi, the parasite of the real working community If the position of the latter were improved and their work recognised at its proper value, as in England, the son of a skilled artizan would not think to better himself, as now unfortunately he often does, by abandoning his hereditary occupation and becoming a quill- driver in an office.
The disbandment of the whole corps of executive and assistant engineers would not only be the greatest possible boon to the districts, but would even be welcomed by themselves, if due regard were had to vested interests and appointments of equal emolument found for them in a more appropriate sphere. The officers of the Roads and Building Department are the one body of Government servants in the country who notoriously have no heart in their work. It is impossible that they should have. Though by profession engineers, they are in fact merely accountants' clerks. Of all the multitudinous circulars that year by year are issued for their guidance, scarcely one per cent. refers to matters of construction. The rest are complicated rules of procedure as to filling in returns; corrections of misprints or explanations of unintelligible phraseology in previous orders; or most frequently of all, fulminations of the direst penalties against any attempt to exercise independent judgment. The one exception is probably either puerile or mischievous; such as an elaborate specification and sketch of a child's tub, that was circulated not very long ago, with a sharp metal edge to it, which might be warranted to draw blood whenever used.
Again, what little work a District Engineer has to do out of his office, is profoundly uninteresting. The maintenance of a road is a task that requires no great intellect or skill, and in England would be entrusted to quite a subordinate; while in the matter of buildings, there is no scope for the exercise of taste or ingenuity, standard plans having been provided, from which no deviation is allowed, whatever may be the differences in the locality and nature of the site. The consideration of such particulars is of less importance than might at first be imagined; for the designs have been so skilfully contrived as to be equally unsuitable wherever they may be
