OFFICIAL’S PARADISE

Hokitika Guardian, 12 February 1924, Page 4

OFFICIAL’S PARADISE

PR IT AIX S EXOR.MOCS SAI.AIO BILL. I.OXDOX, Jan. ! !. Exp.-ing Britain's extravagant administrative methods and horde of overpaid officials. Sir Sidney Low. in an article in the "Weekly Dispatch." points out that the direct salary li-t is equal to the combined total of tile .Ministers of arv three other powers. lie says that nowhere else is the Chief of the War Office, the Navy, or other deoartnu'iit naid t L'otlO a w ar. The Cniled Slates Cabinet consists oi eight .Ministers, each receiving £2-100 a year. The British Cabinet includes from IT to .111 .Ministers, most of whom receive €-5000. Iho Lon! (hnncelic.i is paid £10,01)0. and the Attor-ney-General in salary and lees, ooii,n!i:i

Outside the costly inner conelav there are from 30 to 10 other Minister drawing from €l-500 to €BOOO a year while the Solicitor-General draw €l^,ooo.

More remarkahle than tin* extension of the political bureaucracy i> that of the official hierarchy. The headquarters staff of the Civil Service has since 1011 grown amazingly. So have the

salaries. It takes I'rom two to throe men to do the work of one before tin war, and each is paid more than the solitary predecess or.

Formerly the Permanent Secret an received €1.500. now lie gets CSON) if,-, is assisted by a. second secretary at €2200, with one or two assistants at from £15(10 to €2OOO. The Secretary to the Treasury draws €5500, and his nine assistants from €2OOO to €3OOO each. Another .1(5 draw CM00(1 or more. These salaries are larger than they look when compared with the rewards of professional and mercantile employment, because they carry liberal pensions, and employment is not subject ii> the vicissitudes and uncertainties that beset even the successful man in most avocations. This seems to he forgotten nowadays in apportioning civil service salaries. There i- the same easy generosity with other people’s money in local administration, where officials are paid higher than is justified by qualifications. and attainments, while the taxpayers remain helpless and bewildered.