PUBLIC SERVICE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 86, 2 December 1931, Page 6

PUBLIC SERVICE

assn's attitude GFFICIAL JOURNAL ADVOCATES NO PARTISANSHIP AT ELECTION. ON THE "SILENT VOTE." Under the heading, "The Forthcoming Elections," yesterday's issue of • the Public Service Journal, the official organ of the Public Servics Association of New Zealand, indicates the attitude of the Association at today 's election: — The fact that in the Public Service which the Association represents it is well-nigh universally recognised that employees of the State are ob~ liged by the very nature of their duties to refrain from active participation in politics, compels commendation. Not only should Public Servants so remain aloof, but they must needs abstain from even an expression / or suggestion of partisanship, and disj chargs whatever duties the policy of any given political party which may at the moment govern the country imposes, without regard to the personal and private views for which they have but one method of silent expression in the ballot box. Mental Discipline. The mental discipline thus enforced may not infrequently be severe to a Public Servant of strong convictions, particularly when smarting under a sense of the treatment of a Government which is facing the electors and accounting for its actions. Nevertheless, he derives compensation in more than one way. He is preserved, for instance, from the uneasiness and unrest which permeates services under political control in other lands, where "colour" is sometimes the prime qualification for appointment, promotion — and dismissal — and it enables Ministers of successive Governments, and their Departmental offieers too, to approach each other in a spirit of mutual conadence without which the highest Lype of Public Service would be diffijult, if not impossible What wonder, then, in the fact that ';he Association, the official organisa;ion of the Public Service, has rigidly :efrained from dabbling in party politics, whatever temptations our treatment at the hands of an exist;ng Government may have created. To our minds, the wisdom of the eourse stands out with startling clarity even at this moment when the service . is sore beset. To-day, there'ore, on the eve of the General Election, wa can only cpunsel our mem.ers to exercise their vote in the manner their best individual judgment dictates in the interests of New Zealand. j

No Questionnaire. It has been the practice of the Association at some Parliamentary lecsociation at some Parliamentary elec?arliament a questionaire embodying jaramount points affecting Public Ser."ants with the object of the candilates diselosing their viewpoints in vriting or declaring them from the sublic platform. When we review pre/ious activities in this direction, we nust admit that there is but one outtanding example of success — that reating to the niaintenance of nonpolitical control. In that case, definite announcements by [politicians it the hustings in support of our ■laims proved invaluable when later ittempts were made to undermine the system, and on the eve of the 1928 Jeneral Election the late Sir J. G. Ward advised the Association in writing that the United Party would support its continuance. Thus, fifteen years after the institution of nonpolitical control of the Service by the Reform party, the leader of the bitterest opponents of the system resognised its merits, and the Associa tion was enabled, for the time being at least, to relax its guard. To-day the system is fully acecpted by almost all shades of political opinion, and it is not necessary to put such a question before candidates. i Question of Salaries. j There is, on the other hand. the

paramount question of salaries, but the Executive has noted that the crack of the Party whips has been well-nigh all-powerful in the past three sessions, so much so that many members who advocated the reinstatement of the 1921 salary cuts not only failed to live up to their | undertakings, but blindly supported the 1931 salary reductions, even though they were fully aware that such reductions placed Public Servants on a lower level than workers outsicie the Public Service, having regard to cost of living improvements grantad both groups since 1914. • To crown all, we had at the Huct by-election the unsolicited statemmits of the leaders of each of the three political parties that they were in I favour of the reinstatement of our salaries reductions — and then 1931 and a complete reversal of their election pledges. We do not propose to place any questions before the canchdates upon this occasion. !