PUBLIC SERVANTS AND THE GOVERNMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8547, 3 October 1907, Page 5

PUBLIC SERVANTS AND THE GOVERNMENT.

A PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM BILL".

(By Telegraph—Parliamentary Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, October 2.

In the House this afternoon Mr A. R. Barclay, Dunedin North, in moving the first reading of the Public Service Reform Bill, took occasion to refer at length to the McCullough suspension case. It may be assumed that the Bill was introduced solely for that purpose, as there was no possibility of a private member getting a Bin affecting the public service passed under any circumstances. MiBarclay contended that the regulation: under which Mr McCullough had been suspended never came into operation, until April last, and did not applv to him. His Bill was to prevent anything of the like kind occurring in future. The proper course, he said,, was to repeal the regulation.

Mr J. T. M. Hornsby, Wairarapa,. declared that Mr McCullough had suffered' treatment at the hands of his immediate superior officers that would be irksome to any man who respected his manhood. An attempt had been made to gag Mr McCullough, and a circular had been issued by the Department expressly aimed at him in connection with contributions to the railway paper, and other journals supposed to be contributed to by him. Whatever action the Government took it was probable Mr McCullough would cease to be a member of the service after the end. of the year, but as a matter of principle Mr Hornsby contended that an employee should be a free agent; from the moment the work of the day was over. He resented any form of a bureaucratic system of Government, or that it should be considered that when men entered the railway service they sold themselves to the Ministry of the day. The Premier .deprecated the making of inflammatory statements pending the settlement of' Mr McCullough's case. While the Government was desirous of doing what was right towards public servants it was not going to be ruled by them. The attitude adopted by Messrs Barclay and Hornsby, Sir Joseph Ward said, showed that they were not true friends of the railway workers. The Government was acting dispassionately in regard to Mr McCullough, and so long as there were regulations in force the Government would take the responsibility of seeing that they were complied with. Had the permanent head of . the Department transgressed rule- by either attacking or sympathising with the Government, the Government would have adopted the same course as in Mr McCullough's case. The discussion lasted out the remainder of the afternoon sitting.