WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 August 1921, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

***!■ IIETIIENCHM ENT. j * CIVIL SERVICE PERTURBED. ! (Our Special Correspondents. 1 WELLINGTON, Aug. 24 There is an unpleasant feeling throughout the Civil Service that the Ministry is hatching a scheme of retrenclimcnt wJiicli will roach a good deal further than the retirement of officers who have seen forty years of service and qualified for superannuation. Special inspectors have been investigating every department of the service with a view to ascertaining where and how economies oculd he effected and it is an open secret that some of them ha\e suggested very drastic measures ol icforiu. It remains with the Ministry, of course, to sav whether or not these measures shall be adopted,and Mr Massey s colleagues are not likely to make any move in the matter till their chief icturns to the Dominion, but the very fact of retrenchment being in the air is disturbing the equanimity of officers who have basked for long years in the sunshine of security of tenure and automatically increasing salaries. Nor, in the opinion of people about town, arc they without cause for anxiety. The Prime Minister is the last person in the world who would w ish to make the public servants less comfortable than they are at present, but the needs of the times may drive him to a very vigorous application of the pruning knife. POSSIBLE SAVINGS. Even outsiders can see where savings could he made. The Ministry’s determination not to appoint just yet an Assistant Director of Education to fill the place of the gentleman who lias succeeded to the office of Director points to one of them. The practice of creating assistant directors, assistant commissioners,, assistant secretaries and assistants of other denominations is a growth of comparatively recent years, and it usually involves an increase in the salary of* the chief who is assisted and in the salary of the superior clerk who assists as well as an increase in the other expenses incidental to their office. The “Dominion” protests that economies should not begin in the Education Department, but the man-in-the-stroet is more insistent that they should not end there. Then there were a number of offices created during the war, which may have been necessary, or, at any rate, useful at the time, hut which now merely provide sinecures for people who have no claim upon the State. These, clearly, should he shut down. MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT. Neither Inspectors nor Ministers can outer upon one little field of economy which should he fairly prolific in results. Parliament alone can deal with the salaries and perquisites of its own members. These now run into a fairly generous total. A member lias a salary of Übop a year; travels free on the railwavs and, by the grace of the I'nion Shipping Company, on the coastal steamers; enjoys the comiorts and luxuries ot the best dub in the land, pays reduced telegraph charges and practically no postage at The •‘job’’ must be worth at least. £7o(t a year without taking any of the other perquisites, great and small, into account. When the increased salary was proposed in the House Mr Massey warned members that it might he necessary to review the position il the country found itsell besot hv such financial difficulties as some of the exports were predicting. The financial difficulties are here beyond all question, and it is quite possible members may he. asked to make some personal sacrifice towards lightening the burdens of the rest ol the coin munitv. THE Though there is a slightly less depressed feeling in Wellington to-da\ concerning the financial and trade prospects of the Dominion than there was a month or two ago, no one imagines ihat the country is yet hall "a\ through its troubles. Butter and cheese again seem assured of a good market, which will benefit many others than those immediately interested in their production ; but wool and meat remain at prices which must spell ruin to many farmers who have no other resources. There are large areas of land in the Wairarapa district, for instance, which could not he turned to dairying, even if herds of cows and dozens of butter and cheese factories could he brought into existence by a wave ol a fairy’s wand, and the uiilortuiiafe people occupying them are in the sorest straits. This all is making for a big decline in the public revenue, and enforcing upon the Government the need for a large reduction in the public expenditure. The pressing problem for Mr Massey and his colleagues is not so much where to begin as it is where to end.