WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 28 January 1922, Page 11

WELLINGTON TOPICS

■RETRENCHMENT.

THE CIVIL SERVICE CUT.

(Special Correspondent.)

Wellington, Jan. 23.

As was inevitable, the rank and file of the Civil .Service are raising a very loud outcry against the “cut” in their salaries proposed by the Public Ex* penditure Adjustment Bill now before the House. A number of .deputations representative of the various organisations of the Service ’waited upon the Prime Minister on Friday and a big meeting of protest was held in the Town Hall in the evening. The deputations stated their views quite frankly and Mr. Massey gave them a jvery patient hearing, but judging from the accounts of what transpired at the interviews, little progress was made tox/ards an agreement upon the various matters at issue. The Prime Minister promised, however, that the points raised by the deputations would be considered by .Cabinet before th© Bill reached the committee stage and this is lieing done today. The essence of Mr. Massay’s contention was that the absolute needs of the country demanded the amount of retrenchment contemplated by the Bill and of the deputations’ retort that the lower paid members of the Service were being saddled with more than a fair share of the necessary sacrifice. THE PROBABLE OUTCOME.

There are differences of opinion as to what will be the outcome of the Cabinet’s review of the situation. The division on the second reading of the Bill, which gave the. Government a majority of sixty to six, by no means represents the full disposition of the House towards its proposals. It was only the members of the extreme Labor Party that voted to throw out the measure at that stage and bring about a political crisis. The Liberals and the Independents, official and otherwise, and the moderate Labor members supported the second reading with the reservation that they were not pledging themselves to all its details. A number of the Reform members, it may be fairly assumed from their speeches, went into the “Ayes” lobby with a similar reservation. In these circumstances it seems quite probable that Mr. Massey, after consultation with his colleagues, will agree’ to revise the reductions with a view to relieving to some extent the smaller-sal-aried members of the Service and recovering the concessions from the big-ger-salaried. It is possible, too, he may abandon the idea of making the reductions retrospective and distribute tliAm over a longer period.

VIGOROUS CRITICISM. Though tha first speaker at the Town Hall meeting told the audience the time was one for diplomacy and not for drastic- measures, he described the members of the extreme Labor Party, who had announced their intention to resist to the last ditch any interference with salaries not exceeding £5OO, as “the six friends” of the Service, and was followed by more ardent spirits that mixed their diplomacy with a good deal of vigorous talk. One gentleman declared that before proposing to cut down the pay of Civil Servants, the Government had provided relief for men receiving £lO,OOO a year, having in mind, of course, the rebates in connection with the land and income tax. Another insisted that the “cut” in the Civil Service was the prelude to an attack upon all wage-earners throughout tbe Dominion, and a third implied that the Government repudiated agreements with less compunction than the Germans had displayed in tearing up tie historic “Scrap of paper.” All this, and much more to the same effect, sounded scarcely as the language of diplomacy, but it evoked resounding applause from the big audience.

A LOST CAREER. The urgent need for retrenchment is bringing the Government troubles from other quarters than the Civil Service. While the House was in committee <.n the Defence estimates on Friday, Mr. T. K. Sidey drew attention to the hard lot of cadets who had been selected by examination for training for the military profession at Duntroom College and promised positions on the New Zealand Staff Corps at £250 a year on the completion of their three or four years’ course. Some of these lads, now grown to young men, have returned to the Dominion to be told that the Government has cancelled the whole arrangement and that they must look about for some other employment. Mr. T. M. Wilford and Mr. S’. G. Smith both supported Mr. Sidey’s representations and urged that the decision of the Government should be reconsidered. The Minister in reply said no one regretted what had happened more than he did. but be had a mandate to cut down expenditure and was left with no alternative. It was better for the cadets to abandon all idea of a militarv career while they were young and to' look about for another.