Reform Favours Rise for Civil Servants

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 830, 26 November 1929, Page 8

Reform Favours Rise for Civil Servants

MR. COATES REPLIES

PARTY MANOEUVRING Pr«, 4.'jwutUon W ELLINGTON. Monday Suggesting an increase of £ls a year in the salaries of civil servants on the £240, £265 and £295 limits, the Rt. Hon. J. Coates, defends the attitude of the Reform Party on the question of the “cut." He accuses Labour of being party to a sham fight on the issue. “The fact is," said Mr. Coates today, “that when the Reform Govern, ment reduced the salaries of the public servants, including members of Parliament, in 1922. the whole country was suffering the effects of a very severe slump. The economic situation wits almost critical, and the Government had appealed to the whole country to take in sail to enable it to weather the storm. So far as the public servants were concerned the only alternatives were either for ail State employees to accept a percentage of the reduction, or else for the departments to make ends meet by discharging a large number of employees. facing realities “This was the situation in 1922, and the Government of the day was proud of the way in which the public servants had then faced the realities of the situation and accepted the adjustment. At the same time the Reform Government promised the public servants that their position would be reviewed at the earliest possible moment that the finances of the country permitted. Further, the salaries of nearly all public servants were afterward increased as a result of reclassification. “Having given an undertaking before the General Election that after the election —at latest by April, 1929 —the Government, when regrading and reclassification were under review, would consider the amount of the increase to be granted to publio servants, I suggested in the House last session an immediate increase of £lO in the maxima for men on the £240, £265 and £295 limits. This was done before the half-yearly financial statement wa3 presented, and when the United Government was still keeping the country in the dark about the financial position. “CUNNINGLY WORDED”

“At the same time, Mr. Holland and tile Labour Party were engaged in a sham fight with their friends, the United Government. The Labour Party produced a motion recommending the Government to make an increase in public service salaries, but this motion was cunningly worwed in such a way as to ensure that it could not be carried. It was suggested in the House that the wording of ilie motion might not have been the result of the unaided work of the Labour members, or, if it were their own work, it was certainly designed to avoid embarrassing the Government by any risk of its going through. “There was quite unnecessary and irrelevant reference to the original ‘cut’ as ‘an unjust levy,’ this expres- . sion was, in effect, a vote of condemnation of the previous Government, and cannot have been included tor any other purpose than that of deterring Reform members from supporting it. If Mr. Holland and the Labour Party were genuine in their desire to assist the public servants, and were not actuated, as appearances suggest, solely by considerations of party tactics, why could they not have confined their motion to the single essential of recommending an increase in salaries?” Mr. Coates said he and the Reform members in the House had clearly and emphatically stated that they were sn favour of such an increase, had the matter been left at thaL “Now that the half-yearly figures are available and the revenue found to be in a very healthy condition,” said Mr. Coates, “I wish to state, with a full sense of responsibility and with an initmate knowledge of the capacity of the departments to pay and also of the struggles of the lower-paid public service officers, that I am prepared to increase by £ls a year the maxima for men at the £240, £265 and £295 limits. In saying this I know the feelings of my associates in Parliament.”