LATE PAY DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 1, 20 May 1914, Page 3

LATE PAY DAY.

CIVIL, .SERVANTS' SALAI.UES DELAYED. HOW A .NEW SYSTEM WORKS. Civil servants have been accustomed to get their salaries promptly on the' first of each.month, but May, 1914, will become notable among them for the breaking of that excellent practice, says the Wellington correspondent of the Lytteiton Times. There was astonishment in the big wooden building when the Treasury cheques failed to appear at the usual hour. The anxiety in some departments was relieved late in the day, but most of the State employees in the capital went home without the usual '■welcome supply of cash. Everyone got his salary in due course, some after the I lapse of several days, while public ser- ! vants in outlying towns had to wait and I wonder over a week before the magic [ slip of white paper came along from headquarters. Of course, in those piping times there was no suggestion of a scarcity in the Treasury. The explanation of the delay was to be. found in the uninastcred intricacies of a new system of accounts imposed upon the Treasury Department by the Public Service. Commissioners, The use of calculating typewriters and sheets of carbon paper has been the main method of the Commissioners in their efforts to economise in office labor, but the system, though undeniably excellent within limits, is a time-wasting nuisance when carried to excess, as the delay of salaries this month has served to illustrate. It is said that some departmental heads have become very irritated over the innovations, which they declare only mean change without progress. The typing and carbon-paper habit has had to be taken up eo exj tensively that if a department, with, say, J fifty outlying stations wishes to provide 1 each with a new book it has to make I out requisitions fifty in number for the i Government Printer and have four copies of each to canply with new office method laid down by the Commissioners. Where big things are concerned tltis painstaking method might be acceptable, but when the carrying out of the system has necessitated- extra staffing the departments concerned have begun to wonder where the saving coimes in.