Government Retrenchment.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, 14 March 1891, Page 2

Government Retrenchment.

• A further light on the want of consideration bestowed by the Government in declaring their intended retrenchments so hastily, has been shown by a statement made in yesterday's N.Z. Times which we copy below. " sharp practice," the Times states it to be, to retrench a man who is within 18 months of a pension, it is more than sharp, it is downright dishonesty to the victim, as his engagement led him to make sure of a pension, provided he acted properly and lived long enough. However, we have a Liberal Government and inexperienced Ministers. " The case of Mr Fox, of the Police Department, is a very special case. Mr Fox stands in the unique position of being within eighteen months of his pension. It is a pension for which he has to complete 80 years of work. Of these he has completed twenty-eight and a half. There are twenty-eight and a half years of service to his credit in the records. No other officer in his Department who has been dispensed with has such a claim on the Government. No other officer therefore who has been dispensed with has lost so much by the process. We feel sure that that the Minister was not aware of this special circumstance when he drew the fatal pen through Mr Fox's name. In other words, we do not like to believe that any Minister of the Crown would descend to any paltry device to deprive a public servant of any substantial benefit which he has by his service earned at the hands ot the State. To deprive a man of his pension by dismissal for retrenchment purposes just when the years of his stipulated service are drawing to a close is a species of sharp practice which ought never to be possible in the business of a great country like this. We can only repeat that we feel sure the exceptional hardship in Mr Fox's case has not ' been brought to the Minister's knowledge." I