SALARIES OF PUBLIC.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1858, 18 September 1913, Page 3

SALARIES OF PUBLIC.

SERVANTS.

THE LEGAL POSITION,

STATEMENT BY HON. H. D. BELL

POWERS OF PARLIAMENT.

When tho House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon discussed the question of tho' control exercised by Parliament and the Public Service Commissioner respectively over tho salaries of Public Servants, the Leader of the Opposition put on record a legal opinion obtained from Mr. C. I. Skerretfc and Sir John'Findlay. The Hon. il. D. Bell, when ho was interviewed yesteJllay, made the following statement on tho subject "The form and effect of the Estimates presented to Parliament is a matter governed entirely by the practice or tno House of Representatives, and is not' prescribed by any statute. I he particulars of they Estimates are material for the purposes of two sections of the Public Revenues Act, and for 110 other purpose, except the guidance 0 16 House in arriving at its conclusion as to the total sum to be granted to tno Crown under each head ot Supply tor tho services of the separate Departments. The Appropriation Act, which is passed each year, and defines grants of Supply to the Crown for services of the State, pays no heed to the Estimates. It simply states a gross sum under each Department without reference to tho details by which the House arrived at the aggrcgato. speak of Estimates as 'legal' or illegal is to misuse language, and neither JUr. Skorrett nor Sir John Findlay indicate that any such expression would Have meaning. The Estimates are the details afforded to the House To enable it, .as far as possible, to judge the total amount which will bo required tor each service, and it is for the House, and not for the Law Officers to say whether, under the circumstances, it has sufficient detail. Opposition in Error. "The error into which so many who have spoken recently have fallen, and which, I think, the eminent lawyers who have advised the Opposition, have not avoided, is in supposing that tno 1 üblic Service Act has, in the respect ot classification/ of Departments, introduced some new principle. That is so far from being the case that I am astonished that tho error should have been made. The change in principle effected by the Public Service Act, 1912, was that it provided for appointment and advancement in the Public Service oxcliisively by a non-political Commissioner. That change has not affected, and could not affect, the question of salaries, of officers. _ Tho of classification has existed - in the Post and Telegraph Department since the year 1890, and in the Railway Department sinco tho year.lß96; and the Public Service Act in this respect merely. directed that the whole Service should, bo classified in tho same ijianner and to the s?.me extent as thoso two Departments had already been classified. What, therefore, tho opinion of Mr. Skerrett and Sir John Findlay has been directed to is tho effect of statutory classification upon the powers of Parliament, and in 110 sense- the effcct of the Public Service Act on that power,, except so far as. the Public...Service Act incidentally 'provided for' the completion of'classification/ An Established Precedent. "There is absolutely-110 difference in any matter of importance between tlie Post and Telegraph Classification Act, 1890, and tho classification, provided ; for other Departments by the Public Service Act, 1912. ;The Post and Telegraph Act, 1890, divided that Department into three divisions, according to a classification in a schedule which defined "tho salaries payable, and also provided for tho statutory increment, and maxima and minima, just as the Public Servico Act,'l9l2, does. And tho same is the case in the Railways Classification Acts. For twenty-two years -the exact position upon which it has been thought necessary to seek legal advice to guido Parliament in its proceduro has existed, and it is somewhat surprising to mo that Sir Joseph Ward, who was Postmaster-Gen-eral in 1891," did not .feel'that there then wore what are now called 'legal' difficulties. For exactly the same posi-tion-aroso in 1891 as is .the subject of legal advice to-day. . Taking the present year first, the Financial Statement, was brought down" to the House 011 August 6. The classification by the Public Servico Commissioner wa-s.net then completed, nor was tho proposed classification subject to' appeal, gazetted until August 20. It might not have been •ready for months afterwards. It is still the. subject of appeals, and until the appeals are heard tho salaries are not fixed. What Was Dene in 1891. "Take now the position of 1891. Tho Estimates were brought down for the Post and Telegraph upon the best Estimate that could bo made. The classification was still incomplete, and, further, the method was amended by an Act of 1891. Mr. Ward, speaking in August, 1891, Hansard, vol. 73, pago 211, said: 'It has been found in practice, though it has only been for a short time in existence, \that tho necessary provisions do not exist in that Act "to enable officers of both Departments to bo properly classified. I may inform the House that 242 appeals froni various officers of tho two Departments have been received, and I may say further that before a proper adjustment of these appeals can bo niado it will be necessary for the House to amend the Act.' The House had then in 1891 before it, just as it has now, Estimates of items enabling tho House to judge of the amount of tne total grant it. should make, and then, as now, under precisely similar laws, tho exact amount of the items was unascertained by reason of the non-completion of tho classification. It would be easy to show that similar positions arose in 1897 after tho passing of the Railways Classification. Parliament in Supply. "It is tho duty of tho Minister for Finance when lie presents his Financial Statement to present with it his Estimates for tho year. Mr. Allen did this on August 6. l>o his critics' seriously allege that 110 ought to have postponed •his Financial Statement until after tho appeals from tho classification had been finally determined? Ho did not even know .that the provisional classification was about to be gazetted. He therefore, as was necessary, 'gave the House tho Estimates founded upon tho salaries as they existed on March 31. Do his critics seriously mean to say that tho Hoißsn of Representatives is unable to consider tho grant of Supply bccauso appeals from classification aTO pending, or becauso the classification was- not then published and had not. then had even provisional effect? Parliament 111 Supply is governed by no such ludicrous limit. It requires, and properly -requires, tho best detailed information available, and it has it, just a3 Parliament, under precisely similar circumstances, had tho same amount of information in 1891. 1 A Rccognlscd Practice. "I have referred to what happened in 1891 merel.v to show that tho constitutional position under such circumstances has always been recognised aiid applied, and that the application m New Zealand is at least twenty-two

years old. Tho real fact is that the ciitics ill their eagerness to attack tile Government in respect of.the Public Servico Act, and its real principle, liave been led into an attack upon their own perfectly regular procedure in' past and upon the only possible proceduro under which Parliament, which has directed a classification still incomplete, can proceed to estimate the amount of Supply to be granted to the Departments for the Public Service. A Reference to Critics. "My reference to critics does not inelude the eminent lawyers who have advised the Opposition. Their opinion is as to the effect of statutory classification, and it i 3 quite unnecessary to consider tlmt question or to debate it. It is sufficient to say that whatever effect tho classification of tho Post Office lias had on the powers of. Parliament in Supply since 1890, fhat and no mora, and 110 less, as the cffect to the classification under that Act of last year. But I think that oven those eminent lawyers would have noticed, had their attention been called to it, that their advice as to the effect of statutory classification could not be any guide to tho House of in its decision as to what material it requires to enable it to tho amount of the statutory grants- whilo classification is still incomplete. It would' have been -useful if those counsel had been asked to advise whether the Minister for Finance could give no information whatever to Parliament; or ask for or obtain' an Appropriation Act, if,' as might well have happened, the' Publio Service Commissioner had' not been a.blo to complete his scheme of classification till after tho present session. They would never have suggested that tho House had to have an Act of Parliament requiring the concurrence of the Legislative Council to enable it to get into Committee of. Supply or into Committee of Ways and Means." \