TO PUBLIC SERVANTS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 94, 14 January 1918, Page 6

TO PUBLIC SERVANTS

SPEECH BY SIR JOSEPH WARD

WORDS OF ADVICE

By Telegraph-Press Association,

Christohurch, January 13. Speaking at the' Post and Telegraph Officers' re-union last night Sir Joseph Ward said the Government, within the last three years, as tho outcome of the war; had created, and had to provide ,for a number of employees (soldiers) ten times numerically greater than the whole of the Public Service. It was idle and futile for anyone to believe that in view of this the Public Service, as it existed in normal times, could be carried on as easily by the Government as some people imagined it could. The men and women from end to end of the Dominion wanted to win the war before everything else, and for that reason the Government was not undertaking construction of any public buildings in any portion of tho country that could possibly, be put off till after tho war.

Aa to the postponement of the classification of tho Post and Telegraph Department, Sir Joseph ■ Ward said it could not be done separately. If it were to be done the whole of the Public Service would have to be re-classi fled, and that could not be done except on one condition—one that would not be agreeable to them—and that was the withholding of bonuses. He believed it was better for them to have the present condition of affairs rather than the introduction of a state of affairs which might result in heavy retrenchment and large reductions. He sr.id in all sincerity they must not try to _ drive things. If they did try to dr'te things then he, for one, would not yield unless he could sec that it was safe. It was brcause the Government wanted to get this country straight and right for the people that somo of the things they had been pressed to do had not been done.

_ "In the course of a short time," continued Sir Joseph Ward, "the people of this country will be called upon to provide another ten millions to enable our war. payments to be made—during June or. July noxt, at the longest. Then, if this war is unhappily going on after this period we will have to ask this country to provide many more millions than it will have provided this year. The telegraph messengers and the humblest man in the service is as liuieh concerned in the preservation of this country after' the war is over as the oldest and most responsible men in New Zealand. It is after the war conditions that have to be looked forward to by the Government and Parliament. Those conditions will be without parallel as far as this country is concerned, and you men in the Public Service, sharing your portion of responsibility, have got to be ready to face it with the view of seeing that the prosperity of the country continues." Sir Joseph Ward went on to say the country had got to have small land settlement, and an enormously increased number of people on the land in order to" provide the enormously-increased value of exports to bring an enormous-ly-increased amount of money into the country, so as to meet our obligations without having to resort to crushing taxations.