COMPENSATION TO OFFICERS DISCHARGED UNDER THE ABOLITION OF PROVINCES ACT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4489, 9 August 1875, Page 2

COMPENSATION TO OFFICERS DISCHARGED UNDER THE ABOLITION OF PROVINCES ACT.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —Having read through tho Abolition Bill, I wish to point out tho hard measure which, by clause 13, it is proposed to deaf out to General or Provincial Government officers whose services may be dispensed witli consequent on the abolition of any province. It is proposed, then, that to any officer so discharged within one year of the Bill becoming law, compensation shall be paid at the rate of one month's salary for each year of service. Tho extreme poorness of the compensation cannot he better illustrated than by compaiison with tho compensation given by the Imperial Government under very similar circumstances. In 1870, tlie Admiralty decided upon retrenchment in tho paymasters' branch of tho navy, which end was to bo attained by introducing a new class styled writers, thus replacing officers by men before the mast. In order to reduce the lists of paymasters and assistant-paymasters to the number that would he required under the new system (from about COO to 400), Mr. Childers, then First Lord, offered a liberal pension as an inducement to officers to retire. So successful did the. schema prove, that the whole roduc tion was effected without inflicting tho hardship of compulsory retirement in a single instance. I will now give, for the purpose of comparing the Imperial compensation and the Colonial (as proposed), the case of an assistant-paymaster who retired under tho above scheme. It will be as well to state that paymasters and their assistants are simply accountant officers on board ship, so that tho parallel between them and colonial civil service clerks is very close. The instance about to he quoted being within ray personal knowledge, I can vouch for its correctness in every particular. The assistant-paymaster, then, in question, retired at tile ago of twenty-live and a half, with eight years' service, on a pension of £73 a-year for life, which lie was at liberty to commute for a lump sum of £lOBl. His salary at date of retirement having been £127155., the yearly pension was equal to 9-lGths of such salary : whilst the lump sum was equal to eight and a-half years’ salary. Supposing now this officer to have been in tho New Zealand Civil Service, his compensation at abolition rates would have been eight months’ pay at £127 155., or a lump sum of £SS 3s. 3d. Tho relative compensations are therefore—lmperial Government, £lOBl, or 102 months' salary; Now Zealand, £BS 3s. 3d., or eight months’ salary ; in other words, where the former awards one shilling as compensation for voluntary retirement, tho latter awards one penny for compulsory retirement. It is only necessary, in conclusion, to bring under consideration how little fitted are Government clerks for subsequent employment in banks or merchants’ offices. Take, for example, one whoso solo duty has been tho registering of correspondence. Of him—especially if ho he somewhat advanced in years—it may be said that Ills chance of finding private employ ment at anything like the salary, and in tho same social position which long servitude in a Government office had given him. would be almost hopeless. I trust that before the Bill become law, tho danse will he so amended as that any who may bo unfortunate enough to lose situations, taken in tho fond hope of their proving permanent, may at least have tho consolation of having been liberally dealt with by “ a grateful country.”—! am, &c.