SIR JULIUS VOGEL'S SUPPRESSED LETTER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 205, 29 August 1881, Page 2

SIR JULIUS VOGEL'S SUPPRESSED LETTER.

(By Telegraph.) Wellington, Saturday night. Tbe following is Sir J. Vogel's suppressed despatch, which waa returned to him by the Government but bas just come out by the San Francisco mail : — To the Hon. the Premier, Wellington. Sir,— ln continuation of my letter of the 7tb I have now the honor to further reply to your letter of the 4th December in which ycu are good enough to tell me that the Government regret that I thought it necessary out of my own pocket to pay certain officers the amount which for six months they would lose by the operation of the deduction of the ten per cent on their salaries, and in which you also express the opinion that the last paragraph of my letter to whi' h yours waa a reply was uncalled for. lam not disposed to suffer censure without defending myself, and you must therefore excuse a very frank reply on my part in both cases. You shelter the Government behind Parliament and make it appear that 1 have committed an offence agiinst the latter. I cannot, however, admit this view. The Government is responsible for the legislation to which it submits, and should not remain in office If Parliament force on it measures to which it knows it cannot give effect or at which it disapproves. It is in the very essence of the constitution of Parliament that the Government wbich leads it, and which haa means of information at its command not open to individual members, should interfere to prevent wrongful legislation. I assert, with the utmost respect, that the Government had the means at its command of knowing that the vote it accepted for the Agent General's Department was not sufficient to meet its engagements, and also that it had the means of knowing that the redue tions of ten per cent from the salaries of Civil servants was a straining of legal and moral obligations. Her Majesty's Civil servants of the colony of New Zealand enjoy the protection of certain Civil Service Acts. It is contrary to the spirit of tbose Acts thst the Baiariea of those officers should be reduced unleßS for misconduct. The Act of last session providiog for the reduction of ten per cent off their salaries was a denial of the engagements under which the Civil Servants bold their appointments; No further proof of this is wanted than the injurious effect of the measure on the rights which have gro wn up to retiring allowances; besides, as I have said, reductions of salaries, except for misconduct, are quite opposed to the intention of the Civil Service Acts. The mode of reducing expenditure contemplated by the Civil Service Acts is by the superannuation of superior, and the promotion at reduced salaries of inferior officers. The only alternative to the Act of last session possessing the character I have indicated is' tbat it was a deliberate picking out a class of the community for a special tax or in come tax. , Whichever of the two views be taken there can be no question that the Civil Servants were entitled to express their intention concerning it. The Civil Servants are not the servants of tbia or tbat Minister, but the servants of her Majesty, amenable to legal and constitutional control. Tbey are not serfs, to be subject to injurious proceedings without even the right of remonstrance. When I am censured for an act which was really meant to shelter the Government from disaster I reply that I regret I had not adopted more energetic action. The Government contemplated large reductions in the Service and in this respect was quite within its rights. Nothing can be more reasonable if retrenchment cannot be dispensed with, but the Civil Servants, with the knowledge that the Government contemplated wholesale reductions, were cowed into passively accepting the ten per cent reduction, for whoever desired to ohject might reasonably expect that he would be one of those who would be the first to get dismissed. Let me say that during the last four years there is scarcely a country in the world whicii has not suffered seriously from depression and dimiiished revenue, but the only country which I know of which has taken a similar course with regard to a reduction of the Civi! Servants is Turkey. It may be that the example of that country is one that it is creditable to follow, but at the same time it must be remembered tbat the Civil Servants there do not enjoy the protection of the Civil Service Acts and the reductions even in Turkey were male under the exigencies of tbe ultima ratio regum. When the rate of £3000 was accepted as sufficient to pay the cost of the Agent General's Departmentto the 30th June of this year, the Government had the means of knowing that, consistently with the fulfilling of engagements, it was not sufficient I will proceed to prove this. I was directed by letter dated the 10th September, and by a cablegram which preceded it, to take the ten pet cent ofi aU salaries from the ut Ootober

and to make other reductions, and I was told that the cost of my Department must not exceed £3,000 a year, made up as follows.-«-Agent General £1350 ; Secretary .£6O0 } Accountant £300; Clerk £350; Messenger £40 ; rent &c, £300. Total | £3,000. It was thus made to appear j (Continued on Fourth page.")