THE BIG STICK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 251, 14 June 1932, Page 4

THE BIG STICK

The first test of the recent legislation included in the Finance Act for the purpose of disciplining the civil service, has been applied. A recent Labour Party deputation to the Prime Minister, received a somewhat grudging assurance that if any civil servant was "foolish enough" to sign the present Labour Party petition in circulation, the summary provisioris of the new regulations would not be invoked against him. It is true, as the Prime Minister pointed out, that the petition in question is being circulated by the Labour Party for its own purposes, but that does not remove the fact that it may quite possibly meet the views of a very large number of electors who are not professed Labour sympathisers. That being so, there could be no justifieation for the Government weilding the big stick with which it has thoughtfully provided itself, in order to instil into the civil service a proper sense of meekness towards its masters. Whatever the efficacy of the petition may be, civil servants as much as any other of the electors of the Dominion should be permitted to express their dissatisfaction through legitimate channels. This right of free speech has been one of the most cherished possessions of British peoples,

and a Government in a British country which attempted to deny that right, would be courting trouble. We have already expressed the opinion that the Government has done nothinjg to engender happier working relations with the civil service by imposing irritating and restrictive legislation such as this partieular section of the Finance Act. The public as a whole could be relied upon to draw its own conclusions if that legislation was used by the Government to prevent civil servants from signing a legitimate protest against the Government's methods. Among the lower paid branches of the civil service so little is left, that the expression of dissatisfaction is one of the few comforts remaining. It now remains to be seen whether this legislation, rushed through the House with such remarkable celerity, is, as the Prime Minister asserts, merely a safeguard, or whether it is, as its opponents assert, a weapon to hold over the heads of the civil service in the case of political eventualities.