PUBLIC SERVICE RECRUITS.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2486, 12 June 1915, Page 6

PUBLIC SERVICE RECRUITS.

THEIR POSITION EXPLAINED. (To tho Editor.) , Sir, —Can you tell me what attitude , the Government is taking up with regard to tho payment of Civil Servant* while absent at the front? Are they paying half tho salary as almost aU private firms and institutions are doiuE? And would you kindly inform mo whether it is true that in several Departments, especially the Lands and Survey and the Public Works, intending recruits arc discouraged from enlisting? Surely I have been misinformed for it is the Government who should lsive the lead in such matters. If it is so, I am quite suro Sir. Massey ii . not aware of it, for lie is too loyal to aliow it. Roads and bridges are of no account when the Empire is at stake.-* I am, etc., SA.S. [A representative of The Dominion made inquiries on the subject matter of this letter at the office of the Publio Service Commissioner yesterday. The reply of the Commissioner is that in the first place "almost all private firms and institutions" are not giving their men half-pay. Publio Servants are not getting half-pay or any pay on active service, but they have their positions kept open for them on their return, and the State,pays their superannuation contributions during their absence. No man has yet been refused leave to enlist or to go on active service. The usual practico is for men. to register first, and then to notify the Commissioner. That is not the practice recognised as the risht one, but the fact that it is fairly general should show that the Commissioner is not putting obstacles in the way of men going to the war. It may be that Departmental officers hero and there suggest occasionally to men • that they cannot be spared, but 116 one but the Public Servico Commissioner has power to grant or refuse leave, and the Commissioner !has Helves yet refused leave to any Public Servant. A very few men have resigned from the Service before going to the front, but they; have done this for their own reasons, perhaps because they wished_ to draw contributions they had paid •to the Superannuation Fund—and not because of anything said or done by the Public Service Commissioner. This statement of the case applies to all Departments. There is no point in the special mention made by our correspondent of the Lands and Survey, and of the Publio Works Department. Officers in these Departments may leave as freely as any others to join the Expeditionary Force. —Ed. Dominion.]