THE CASE FOR THE CIVIL SERVANT.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 November 1917, Page 6

THE CASE FOR THE CIVIL SERVANT.

To the Editor. Sir, —Occasionally in the columns of your paper may be seen expressions of opinion adverse to the giving of a war bonus to civil servants. Do the writers of these opinions really think about the matter when they pen them? Last year the argument against the bonus was that it was a species of shameful State robbery. Well, is it? Can you point to any industry where the worker is not getting an increase of wages or a war bonus and sometimes both? Then why should the civil servant be the only one to bear the increased cost of living with the pre-war salary? The reason is he is the servant of a noble democracy governed by the conservative and very ancient principle of pure selfish greed. The members of our democracy have never enjoyed so great a prosperity, even after paying war taxes, but pure primitive selfishness makes it irksome that civil servants should share in it. The private employer pays more wages to his workmen because if lie didn't lie would not get the workmen. There you are! Now, this year the argument against a bonus is that if the Government cannot afford to pay higher allowances to soldiers' dependents then there will be trouble if they pay a war bonus to civil servants. I suppose any position is tenable when arguing against a pet political aversion. But I think it is a mean action of the Second Division or its supporters to use the civil servants as a lever to obtain what they want. Anyhow, ure the League quite bonest when stating that at the present rate of allowances the soldier will leave his dependents in penury? Or is it merely n rhetorical figure of speech that induces people who don't think to support their view and that really means nothing? Now, compare the lot of my dependents when I run called up with my ease at present. lam earning £■'■'< 13a a week. I suppose that it takes quite £1 a week to keep me in food and clothing. In addition I pay out 12s ,i week (to be exact £33 Is Sd annually) for superannuation and insurance. That leaves £2 Is a week. My wife does not get all that, either. I must have some spending money. Put it down at 5s a wee!: and that leaves £1 Ills that my wife gets. Nov,-, how will she and the child fare in the event of my being called up? She will get 3s a day for herself and Is for the child. I can allot 3s a. day (1 know one man who allots .-ft). That makes £2 9s a week for my wife instead of £1 Mis—13s a week better oil'! How ean the League honestly say that soldiers' wives will be left in penury? You may plainly see that we. who have small fixed salaries, have not much to come and go on and vhat any increase in living makes it difficult to make ends meet. Candidly I want the bonus to help meet the higher cost of living and I expect there are hundreds in exactly my position. Even if we get last year's amount (£1.1) it only makes an addition of not quite Cs a week leaving my wife still better off with me in khaki then at present. Sir, if the readers of this will put aside for a moment political prejudices, party catch-phrases and various specious arguments in opposition to the proposal to pay a bonus thev will admit that civil servants struggling along on a small salary deserve it. And I hope they won't deem the same civil servants unpatriotic for wishing it.—l am, etc., A CIVIL SERVANT. [The point we sought to make was not that civil servants were unentitled to a war bonus so much as the Government's inconsistency in stating that it could not afford to grant bigger separation allowances to wives and children because of the exigencies of finance yet was able to find eight times more by way of bonuses foncivil servants. We recognisethat the latter are suffering from the increased cost of living, hut it has to be remembered that other classes with fixed and, indeed, reduced incomes, are also feeling the pinch. As for our correspondent's remarks regarding the adequacy of the separation allowances, we cannot concede that his absence will mean a saving of £1 a. week to his wife and child, unless she breaks up the home. But is that advisable in the interests of the family and the State? It is just the thing the Government agrees should not be done! He vsays his wife will be 13s better off, hut it lias to be borne in mind that the 13s i s about balanced by what he pays now in superannuation and insurance, which really ia. a. saving or investment and not a cost of living item. If our correspondent is a smoker he will not be able to save anything from the 2s he retains for himself and if he wants more he will he forced to cable home ior it, just as so many men are doing now. His wife will not find it easy to save any money from the pay allotment and allowance, and, on his return to start work afresh there will" be nothing to come and go upon. Much better for the family and the State, in our opinion, that separation allowances should be adequate ao as to permit of a little margin. The country, we holdj. should not be eihcesepariiig when it comes to treating and caring fop soldiery' dependtents, who should be the last to suffer. That really was the main point of our article.' The country, of course, can well afford it, and we don't maintain, and never have maintained, that it cannot either afford to properly treat civil servants. Protest has 'been made in the past not against the low-paid members of the civil servants receiving a war bonus, but against the higher paid ones. If our correspondent's ease is typical of the former class, then the wonder is that they live in decency at all.—Ed.]