NOTES OF THE PAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 908, 30 August 1910, Page 4

NOTES OF THE PAY.

We must compliment the Fbime Minister on the step he has taken' to re-establish an ocean mail service via America. The proposal is not a very formidable , one in its present form, ■ but it is to be welcomed as containing possibilities of' better things. I'ho steamers to be engaged in the service are admittedly not of a very high class for the work of mail-carrying, but if at the end of tho year for which the arrangement is to be entered into a new contract extending over a periud of years is- decided on, a more satisfactory proposal in this respect may be submitted.. So far as the bulk of the commercial community is concerned the existing mail service via Suez is satisfactory enough, and could be made more so by a re-ar-rangemerit of the dates of sailing-of steamers' which carry the inward mails between Sydney and New Zealand. At the present time the mails lie in Sydney for a day or two awaiting the departure.of the boat for Auckland. The weak spot in this service, which is otherwise remarkably regular and satisfactory, has. beon the connection between Australia and New 2ealand, and if this wore remedied no complaint could be made so far as English and Continental mails are concerned. A regular mail to America, however, is needed, and the new 'Frisco service will provide a monthly connection which will be widely appreciated. Should tho Vancouver service eventually make a port of call in New Zealand, the whole position will have to be reconsidered, .but that is a matter for the future. Auckland appears inclined to grumble over the new arrangement. The President of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce diGcusses the matter from a parochial standpoint and seems to think that Wellington gains some advantage which should properly belong to Auckland. It is to be regretted that the matter lias been approached in this narrow spirit. The only question to be considered is which portof call is best situated to serve the interests of the whole country. >.

• When the latest-received mail left London, on July 22, the people of Great Britain had had a week of excitement over an extraordinary number of murders. The Daily

Mail grouped nine of them as its "star" feature one day. It was natural enough that, instead of accepting the collection of tragedies as only accidentally contemporaneous, people began to search for some explanation other than the fact that there must be .slack and busy times in murder statistics as in anything else. It will interest Sir .Robert Stout to know that in one paper .at least, the Daily News, the weather was blamed for what was called "an unusually extensive unsettlement of that normal self-re-straint which keeps men and women from the taking of life." "The nervous depression caused by the continual pall of grey sky and unseasonable rain," says the Sews, "has been felt in some degree" by most of us, even if we do not all realise it. Strangely enough, in a normal July, it'is the sudden coming of the summer .heats that unsettles men and women, and makes July the most murderous month, statistically speaking, oft the twelve. This year has shown that the burden of sunless and stormy weather out of season weighs even more upon modern nervous systems than the burden of the airless days of prostrating heat." It is pleasant to be able to blame something—Sir Robert Stout thinks that crime is in a measure dependent on climate—but Jiow does the weather theory account for the crimeless weeks, no two of which are alike 2 Such speculations are typical of this age—this restless, curious age of theorising on, one little bit of data without regard to any other data. '••■'■

The occasional references made to "strain" upon the Civil Service Superannuation Fund are calculated to cause uneasiness. The' Prime MiNiSTEH yesterday, in replying to the deputation from the Professorial Boards of the University Colleges, made a reference of this kind. No doubt his only object was to impress the professors with the difficulties in the way of granting their request, bufc.it would, in the circumstances, have been .wiser to have been more explicit.. The further suggestion that the resources of the fund were liable to be subjected to undue strain through . pressure brought to bear on Ministers by retiring Civil Servants was also disquieting. What pressure can retiring Civil Servants bring to bear on Ministers? And what sort of Ministers have we if there is any risk of that pressure being yielded to to such an extent as to give the Civil Servants in question "salaries" instead of "pensions" on which to retire?! It would be interesting to see a return showing the increases of salary, granted to highly-placed Civil Servants within a year or two of their retirement' on pension. These superannuation funds want close Scrutiny and any changes that are made must be carefully watched both in the interests of the participants and the taxpayers.