POLITICAL INFLUENCE.
For many months past, the clerks in the Money Order office and Savings Bank in Wellington—the biggest office of the kind in the Colony, have started work at 5.30 in the morning. This they do in preference to going on at 9 in the morning and leaving the office at 10.30 or 11 o’clock at night. They do not get paid overtime for this. Indeed in the Postal service of New Zealand theauthorities work it so cunningly that hardly any overtime is paid at all. On the other hand, for some mouths past, one might say for a term of years men in other departments cfthe public service have had so little to do that they cannot keep their fingers warm. The new Billet Ministry is not worrying. It is not adding to the staffs of those Departments where more help is necessary. It is filling up those Departments where there is little or nothing to do. A while ago a married man with a large family applied for transfer from one working department to a sinecure department. He did so because he knew that in the higher paid Department—to be explicit the Department of Tourists and Health Resorts—he would have a little time to attend to his family, he would not be working until midnight and other little , things to be considered by the civil servant. His application was refused. He is nobody, has no political influence and has never sought to wield any. The son of a prominent volunteer officer, in the same Department, unmarried and having only half the service of the other man applied for transfer. He at once got it. For half the work he was doing before he is getting more pay. As we say he is the son of a man who is able to pull one of the many wires that lead to success in this country. Life in New Zealand is developing into one gigantic crawl. The man who is the most expert crawler does the least work —and licks the most Ministerial hands. The Civil service of this country is made up of some of the most competent and brainy men in the country and of persons in command of them who are too slow to catch their breath except in the way of creeping round for power and place. As one sees more of the inner working of the Billet Ministry and its machinery one likes it less and less. There will be no improvement until the whole service is taken away from political control and until no man gets into the service or is transferred to another department except for exhibiting some special merit. Speaking of political influence, the most unlikely persons appear to possess a large stock of the article. In an Auckland case in which a gaol-warder, was sued for the maintenance of the illegitimate child of a woman prisoner, and was found to be the parent, the wife of this warder was closely cross-questioned as to the possession of “political influence.” The lady denied possessing “political influence but asserted that she had been asked to use her “ influence ” to secure an appointment as head of a Prison Department for a man
who would have to depose the then occupant to be able to fill ’the pos.tion. When it is even suggested that the wife of a gaolwarder may possess the influence to get Government appointments made it is an evidence that things are not what they seem.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19070212.2.9
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3750, 12 February 1907, Page 2
Word count
Tapeke kupu
584POLITICAL INFLUENCE. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3750, 12 February 1907, Page 2
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Manawatu Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.