HOW WARDISM MET A CRISIS.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2324, 4 December 1914, Page 16

HOW WARDISM MET A CRISIS.

940 CIVIL SERVICE VICTIMS. MERCILESS CUTTING OFF OF THE SMALL MAN'S PAY. MINISTERS' SALARIES UNTOUCHED.

The men at the helm in New Zealand during the next three years will probably be called upon to bear the heaviest burden, ever yet plaoed on the shoulders of Ministers of the Grown in this oountry. It is a far ory from our peaceful land to the ruin and devastation of war that has fallen upon Europe. To-day the momentum and prosperity, of the days before the war still carry ua along, and our trade and industry have been touched but lightly by the ohill hand that has stopped the looms in Lancashire and brought thousands

entiol friends to press their olaims iot consideration. The nature of the retrenchment was well desoribed by Mr. A. W. Hogg, who was a member of the Ministry at the time it was effected. In a speech at Moaterton in 1911, Mr. Hogg &aidi— "What was the nature of the retrenchment P Civil Servants —some . of them with fat salaries—that had reached the allotted age, were superannuated and added to a formidable pension list. Temporary clerks wore unceremoniously dismissed and offered land on wlioh,

of families in many lands face to face with want and penury. It is idle to hope that New Zealand oan wholly escape the blight that is falling upon civilisation. ,We shall have to face the prospect of difficulty in obtaining the money needed for 'the development of, the country and the possibility of disorganisation in the markets for our produce; and the longer the war lasts the more severely will the pinch be felt; It will be, above all things, the time when the 000 l head and steady hand are needed at the holm. When you oast your vote, remember the work that will lie ahead of the Parliament you are helping to elect. It will in all probability be the trying and thankless, task of piloting the country slowly and cautiously ahead through the fogs and shoals of financial uncertainty. Of the two parties bidding for your support, on which do you think you can place the most reliance for this olaes of workP On the one side is the Wardist-Sooial Democratio Federation group, and on the other the Reform Party. Both have had to face times of financial stringency while in office, and it is well to recall the spirit in whioh each met the situation. Sir Joseph Ward became Prime Minister on August 6, 1906. He shared Mr. Seddon's fondness for doing things in a big way, but he laoked thi native oanniness of Seddon. The country was in the midst of a period of. prosperity greater than, it had . ever previously 'known, but rapidly as the revenue increased with the growth of trade still more rapidly did Sir Joseph Ward pile | on the expenditure. In the days of Mr. Seddon the greatest inorease in expenditure on Departmental charges, interest bill, and old age pensions in any one year was £4&6,458. In Sir Joseph Ward's first year there waa an inorease under these heads alone of £612,635; in his second year of £478,990; and in his third year of £571,548. ' The upshot was that at the end of his third year in office the expenditure had increased by £1,663,178 over what it was when he took office. This represented an inorease of 23 per cent, in expenditure as against an increase of 17 per oent. in revenue. It was becoming obvious to anyone who studied the figures that the Treasury was outrunning the oonstable. In 1908 and 1909 okrada rose upon the horizon and seme months of business depression caused a shrinkage in the Customs revenue. , Every penny of the revenue, and more, was needed to enable the Treasury to meet the expenditure to which Sir Joseph Ward had oommitted the country. Name after name had been added to the national pay-sheet by the Ward Ministry in its two first prodigal years, and when the pinoh came, how was it met? Faced with the result of their own extravaganoo and folly, Sir Joseph Ward and his colleagues applied the pruningknlfo with ruthless severity. Civil Servant after Servant was pitchforked into the street. Everyone know that the Servioe had been .grossly overstaffed and the taxpayer burdened with the cost of maintaining scores of persons who must have been 'hard put to fill in time iii the positions to which they wore appointed. Few people, however, wore prepared for Sir Joseph Ward's own announcement in his Budget of 1909 that 940 persons had been discovered whose services could be dispensed with without any loss to the efficiency of the Public Sorvice. It was by no means certain though that the 940 victims of Wardism, kicked into the street, were those who had reached thoir positions by way of 'the Ministerial backstairs. They were in too many cases the meek and the lonß-Bufferinß. the poorly-paid drudges of Depßrtmeßts witi aa iaflu.

not being bullocks or bushmen, they ••■ were unable to live. Tlie Roads.Do- • partment ... wbb smashed to pieces. . . . The boasted saving to be effected by retrenchment wbb made at the: expense .of the cooperative labourers and land set- ' ' tiers.". This wholesale bundling out of State employees began in the first quarter of the financial, year of 1909. What Sir Joseph Ward's assurances are worth as to the state of the publio funds when ha. Is Treasurer may be judged from the picture painted by-him a few months previously. In his election manifesto of November 14, 1808, he said:— "I would again repeat, for your a&suranoe that all our finanoiaf engagements have been, provided for , For many months ahead, and the moneys.required to carry on publio works have been arranged for on; the most satisfactory terms. What we require is faith in ourselves '. and faith in our country, and. having this, I feel certain the future is bright with hope!" This waa what the publio were told when their votes were wanted. After election day, ' when the Ministerial salaries were, safe for another three' Years—they, escaped the retrenchment untouched—the real facts gradually leaked out. When Sir Joseph Ward in. April, 1909, set out to save £250,000 by cutting down other people's salaries, it does not seem for one moment to have so much as remotely occurred either to him or his colleagues that the generous and ample salaries of the members of the Ministry should suffer. In fact, while the head of the Cabinet was so busy economising at other people's expense the Ministry dipped their Hands even a shade more deeply Into the

sir Joseph '.ward; Speaking on the cost of living, he asked if the present ■Government had- done anything to reduce it?—("NoD Had there been any effort to do it) -("Not") Then,, said Sir Joseph Ward, you put me into Parliament' and I will dp it. —Loud applause. He had been for thebesi part of twelve months examining a scheme by which the main articles of food could be cheapened, and the same system could be extended to'meat, bread, and coal. It could -be done with the assistance of the State. The great bulk of our products had a fine market abroad, and the State, without interfering with the men upon the land, could provide a system whereby the whole of the products going abroad, and the portion remaining here for consumption, could be cheapened.

publio purse than they did the previous year. Here are the figures:— , 1908-9. 1909-10. £ a. d. £ e. d. Ministerial salaries and house allowances 9,838 810 9,966 13 i Travelling allowances & expenses 2,886 3 1 2,916 11 6 '* 12,724 11 11 12,872 i 10 The increase in the year when the retrenchment was taking place—it began In earnest in April. 1909—was therefore £147125. lid. - / Once before in the history of New. Zealand was retrenchment necessary, and when the Prime Minister of 1887 undertook the work he began in a very different way from the Liberals of 1909. His first and heaviest cut was at his own salary, whioh he brought down from £1750 to £1000. The other Ministers were_ reduced from £1250 to £800, and their number,was brought down from seven to six. Ministerial travelling allowances were curtailed from the maximum formerly allowed of £1500 to £1000, and members -of Parliament had their salaries reduoed from £210 to £160. Having reduced his own and his Government's salaries by £3450, the Premier of the day, Sir Harry Atkinson, began on the Civil Service.

The Ward record of 1908 and 1909.

with its reversion from plunge to panio oontrasts strongly with that of the Massoy Covernmont In faoo of tho financial dlffloultles with which It found Itself surrounded on taking office In July, 1912. The Treasury had been practically cleaned out, and the Publio Works Fund was overdrawn by'about a million sterling. Sir Joseph Ward was advised in January by the High Commissioner to raise a loan at the first favourable opportunity, but he made no effort to do so. Bfis_ reason- for not raising a loan at that time is set out in Hansard (Vol. 150, p. 48). It was as follows:— "The position of parties was snob/'" that I would not acoept the responsibility of authorising a four mil-' lion loan with the certainty of being told that••lishould i have allowed so Important a finanoial transaction to 1 wait,until the House itself deoided who was to rulo." ' Sir, Joseph Ward .remained in offloe until Maroh 28. 1912.' He raised no loan allegedly because of his desire to leave the next-Government as free a hand as possible, but he spent £1,785,000 In anticipation of a loan being raised. Hia successor, as it bo happened, was a Liberal (Mr. Myers), and not a Reformer, as Sir Joseph Ward had anticipated. The state of the finances was such that Mr. Myers had no option but to rush to London for money on any terms.that he. could get. He found the market unfavourable, oould only get a short two-year loan, and had to pay about the heaviest price on record during recent years; for it. If Sir Joseph Ward • had followed the advioe of the man on the spot the money oould in all probability have been obtained for ten years at a reasonable cost. Ho Bpent nearly two millions,of a- loan that did not exist, and left his suooeasor to foot the bill.

The scheme propounded by Sir Joseph Ward for reducing the price of everything and removing the "anomalies" of life and industry at a blow .is not the first oj'its hind that has thrilled the world. A student of Shakespeare pointstoutthat Sir Joseph Ward might even be suspected of plagiarism from "Henry 71." Compare, for instance, what he told the citizens of Dunedin recently,' and the words with which Jack Code, in the play, tickles the ears of his followers. The similarity is extending even to the plaudits of the multitude: — .

JAOK CADE. Cadet Be brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; the threehooped pot shall, have .ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be in common, and in Oheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And when-1 am king (as king I will be)r~ All :. Ood save■ Your Majesty ! Cade: I thank you, good people:—There shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me- their lord;

Jack Cade did not attain to office, so the world was deprived of the working details of his schema, and unfortunately everything points to the probability of this misfortune overtaking Sir Joseph Ward and Ms amusing ideas.

And his reaiion? Tho state of parties was uncertain!

When the Massoy Government came into office on July 8, Mr. Myers, it is true, had obtained his 4} million loan of June 7, hut practically the whole of this had been spent or pledged before it was raised. Of the whole sum, only £476.000 wtts available for expenditure on publio works. At tho same time the deficit on the Publio Works-Fund was no loss than £1,859,000. Tliub the net result of Mr. MyerV loan was to reduoo tho deficit on the Publio Works Fund to £873,000." The problem for |the new Minister was to make : this amount Rood or stop the expenditure of public moneys all over the oountry, as Sir Joseph Ward had done in 1909, i when the Customs revenue fell bv I £300,000. The Consolidated Fund was ba bad way as tho oredit balance had fallen from £770,000 at the beginning of the year to £188,000 on June' 80. The advances accounts and many of the minor separate accounts were' also at sixes and sevens as can be seen from figures in the Budget of 1912. - - The situation was a trying one for anew Ministry.- It was like unravelling, the,affairs of a speculative builder in % mess. Compare it with the situation that faced Sir Joseph Ward at tie end of March, 1909, when he began his era of dismissals and reductions. He had estimated a revenue for the year ending that day.of £8,086,000, but although the actual yield was elightly in excess of this amount, viz.. £9,001,186, he Btill found himself in serious difficulties. This was. due to the fact that he,had boon unable to keep within his estimated expenditure, whioh he had' exceeded by £122,620. . The position at the time of the reversion from plunge to panic was by no means so Bfrious as that which faced Mr. Allen at tho Treasury in 1912.. But how did ths l Reform Government meet the situation? There was no sensational Black Friday In tho Civil Sorvloe, but a steady application to the work of saving here and saving there until the owner could be turned, all ■ tho Ward liabilities wiped off, and the accounts put in ', a thoroughly Bound . position. Thanks to. the Government, the country can faceth'e pinoh of the war with its finances in a sounder and, healthier position ,thaii they have been for many years past. Sir Josopli Ward met with but one brief spell of equally weather in his oareer as Minister or Finance in New Zealand, and94o Government employees know to their cost' how he dealt with it. His forte has not been saving money,- but spending it Ho is now in virtual alliance with the Bed Federation, whose demand is for social experiment at someone, else's expense. The only hope he has of returning to office is by bidding for the Btpport of the Wehbß, M'Combs, Paynes Atmores, Semplea, and Hickeys of the day. The financial stringency of 1908-9 showed the Ward' Administration in its true light. It stood revealed bb nakedly Belfish nad unashamed,' outting off the pittances of clerks and sending them to join the unemployed and' yet saving not so muoh' as one penny piece on-its own hand- - Bome salaries. Such a Ministry could only stand condemned by public opinion. . And it waß condemned and thoroughly when next it Has forced to seek the people's verdict.'

Th 9 Wardtsts have expressed no contrition for their aotions, but even have the audacity to appeal to you for your support beoausoiof their, record I Remember that record when you cast your vote and express your Idea of what Is fair play between man and man.