The reasons I think a local Commission is undesirable are:
1. It will strengthen the Unofficial members as against the officials, whereas the Unofficials are attacking the officials simply because of their salaries as a measure to attack the Colonial Office. I consider it, therefore, not to be absolutely the way to indulge in divisions over the officials to the hands of their Unofficial press colleagues.
2. There is absolutely no bona fide ground for this Commission, and its establishment is a limited and very simple subject. There is nothing unauthenticated. It is not proper to cut down salaries, except on vacancy; and it is decided to cut down establishment expenses as appointments fall vacant. The curtailing process has already begun. There is no man in the whole service more likely to better himself about it than Mr. O'Brien; and if Sir F. Swettenham or Mr. Maxwell goes for a few months, it would rivet and extend what has been done.
I have known well enough that this colony has been overmanned and unfit for it. The separate Auditor and separate Treasurer are creations, I think I am right in saying, of the Colonial Office. What could a commission do? Either it could recommend, as the Unofficials have recommended, that all salaries should be cut down. But this recommendation is common...
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