PUBLIC SERVANTS AND PRIVATE EMPLOYEES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3112, 16 June 1917, Page 9

PUBLIC SERVANTS AND PRIVATE EMPLOYEES

THEIR POSITIONS COIIPABED.-

Sir,—Tho reports that appear in newspapers regarding itho Civil Service Associations, (lisclosmg tlio aims tho different Sections of the Service desiro to obtain, .iworo further emphasised, ut our local P. fend T. Officers' Association's banquet by Air. Coombs, their permanent secretary. Mr. Coombs gave as an. illustration tho position of a lad starting in his Department, and his salary after ten years' service, and compared him with a boy .apprenticed to the carpentering trade, and the difference between the two after ten years. -The. difference is so striking that .•with your permission I wish to give facts to disprove tho views advanced by Mr.

Coombs. Two boys start life, one. goes into the- Service; the other learns a trade. The Service boy starts off the mark with about .£SO per , year screw; •the •'prentice boy does five years' hard graft at a wage that for at least three years about paya his tucker bill to his parents; und don't forget this: has to find his 'own , tool 3 -when a full tradesman. Wo will accept for argument sake at the end of liis apprenticeship ho earns ,forty shillings per week. Put tho wages Bide by sido of the Servieo boy and the apprentice, which boy has had the "cake"?-why, the Service boy! '. . ' As they grow up to be men, what is tho position of affairs? The Servico boy is secure in his occupation—no deduction for wet days, illness, or want of work. (Everything is rosy in the garden to tho Servico man—stated hours and holidays, . and the last of tie month brings the ••'needful," even if he has had the luunips half the month. The carpenter has (scores of disadvantages to fight against, and he is , 'a very lucky man if he gets nine full months in a year. It is unnecessary, one would think, to state that - the skilled artisan is of immeasurably ■jupro value to tho State than unskilled or semi-skilled Civil Servants. I will give an illustration. A chief storenian died after 35 years' service. He ■was an able man, and did good clerical ■work—quite equal to any ordinary Civil 1 Servant. The firm gavo his widow one hundred pounds and groceries for six months. For years ho had eight shillings a day, and only of late years, since the union of storeinen has teen in force, has he earned anything like ;C3 ss. a week. Now take the Civil Servant with 35 years' Bervice! Wouldn't' he Jiit higher than , £& a tfeek—and, mind you, a snug little ■pension—no solitary hundred down, but about .£l5O a year. Now, I would ask Mr. Coomb 3 who has tho "cake," the Service man or the artisan or storoman ? ■Why, tlie Service man' is in clover and doesn't know it. But it may come to pass after the little bill for the war gets totted up, and our returned soldiers coino back, the Dominion will say with no : uncertain voice that the disabled must have pensions that will allow them decent means of living, and as •Wβ can't keep two pension schemes going, the Civil Servant must, like all other'lion-Civil Servants, find their own pensions by indi- '■ vidnal savings. The Consolidated Fund lias been the inilch cow for tlio Service Pension, and no doubt if they' got 'the chance the cow would be squeezed dry; but I am enro the soldier is going to ne "topdog," and rightly so. Take it any way, tlie Service man has the pull of the good things going.- and. if it is'anticipated .that by federation of the different branches of the service n big pull on • Parliament can be made for their exclui Eive benefit, it may happen, and probably •will happen, that the outside'public will start firmly planting their heels against tho "pnll." A i few years will see the old political ! leaders and parties back numbers, and the pure democratic policy of no spoon-feeding to one particular class will be the law.—l am. etc., '.-■■ . A. MECHANIC. Wanganui, June 12.