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Hokitika Guardian, 27 November 1929, Page 4

]t was unfortunate for the Government Hint its proposal that the members of the Lower House should receive an allowance of £K)O apiece, in augmentation of their salaries for the year, was brought before Parliament within a few days of its resistance of a motion which urged an improvement in the scales of salaries of the lower-paid members of the public service. It was not less fortunate for several of the members of the Government that their opposition to ibis motion involved G, 0,111 in violation of pledges which they had given, probably without any expectation that by an electoral lrea.lt they mild lie placed during this Parliament in a position of Ministerial responsibility, me Government’s action has been seriously disappointing to a large number of members of the public service, whoso displeasure has been expressed in the resolutions of service organisations that have received a wide measure of publicity. Some of these resolutions have been couched in terms of vigorous protest, but none of them has gone to the length of threatening the Government with the active antagonism of the public servants of the ballot box. A correspondent in the Otago Times, reminds the Government that the public service exerts a power at a general election that may, inclusive of dependents of public, officers, he measured at 90,000 votes. An unblushing suggestion that the public service might throw a vote 0i unquestionable magnitude into the scale in favour of any political party that would give special consideration to the interests of the employees of the State irrespective of those of the general community serves to illustrate the danger that is inherent in the existence of a swollen service.. It is a danger that was met in Victoria a good m’any years ago by the constitution of the public servi e into a constituency with ,■ spec'll representation in Parliament and by the withdrawal from miblic servants of the right to vote for the election-of any but their special representatives. It would he extravagant to say that the need lor the adoption of extreme measures of this kind for the protection of the interests of -the general community Ims been made apparent in New Zealand. If, however, the- public service ever steps into the political i’ r ena, and employs its voting strength in an effort either to retard or to punish any political party, it Vi 11 probaMv find that it has overstepped what the taxpayers regard as a mark of propriety.