GOVERNMENT RETRENCHMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 281, 25 November 1921, Page 8

GOVERNMENT RETRENCHMENT.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The old system of deducting ] from Civil Service salaries an all round percentage is neither fa.ir nor effective. '■ It is sufficiently apparent that reduc- , lions will have to be made, but an all < round 10 per cent is not an equitable [ basis, and presses heavier in proportion on the man with a salary of £200 per : annum than on the man with £2,000. A fairer and more effective system would be a .eraduated percentage, rising as the salary increases, say. commencing :>t five per cent for salaries of £250 per annum, and increasing, if necessary, to 30 or 40 per cent in the case of the higher salaries. It is not the lower-paid understrappers who nrc responsible for the enormous (considering the population of the Dominion) dimensions of the various Government Departments attained during a period of unprecedented prosperity, but the higher-paid responsible heads: and it i.- only common justice that they should pay in proportion to their indifference and neglect, so strongly evidenced by the rapid and abnormal growth of the cost of the public administration during the las.t few years.—l am, etc., G. BODLEVT.