The Press. TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1873.

Press, Volume XXI, Issue 2490, 29 July 1873, Page 2

The Press. TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1873.

It must be remembered that the present state of the Jaw has divided members of the Civil Service into two separate classes —those who. entered before, and those who entered after, JNovernber, 1871. With the latter we are not now concerned. When they accepted their appointments the portions of the Civil Service Act relating to retiring pensions had been already repealed. The country, therefore, ha? contracted no permanent obligations towards, them. It is open to the Assembly, should it think fit, to order an annual deduction from their salaries for the purpose of creating a superannuation or retiring fund ; nor is there anything in the terms of their engagement which would render such a course unrequitable. If they are dissatisfied, they may resign their situations and leave the service, but they have no ground for complaining that they have been unfairly treated. But those officers who entered before November, 1871 —that is, who were in the service at the time the Amendment Act of 1871 was passed — are in a totally different position. With them the colony has contracted permanent engagements. The country baa undertaken in the most formal and bindiug way m which such a pledge could be given—namely, by an Act of the General Assembly — that upon retiring from the service they shall be entitled to, and shall receive, a pension, proportioned to the amount of their salaries, and the time they have been employed. Any change therefore, which tends to depreciate their pecuniary interests under the Act is a breach of contract. For though the Act is repealed, it was expressly provided that the repeal should have no retrospective effect. The words are as plain as possible :—" Such repeal shall not prejudice or affect the rights, , claims, and interests,'' absolute or contingent, under the said Act, of persons appointed before the passing of this Act." The next clause provides that the exact amount which every officer in the service would be entitled to receive for any right, claim, or interest up to lith November, 1871, should be computed, and the return presented to the Assembly next session " with a view to the settlement of such claim.?." Thus whatever rights any Civil servants possess under the Acts of 1858, 186 L, and 1866, or their claims to compensation if those rights are infringed, are recognised as absolute. And it is a monstrous thing to turn round on them and say that, because the settlement of these claims will involve a heavy charge on the colonial revenue, they must put their hands into their pockets, and help to provide a fund out of which they may be paid. In 1871 the very proposal contained in the Bill before us was made to the House of Representatives. It was rejected ; and, curiously enough, no one opposed it more strenously than Mr Vogel. .. Mr Wood moved a resolution " that the existing Acts conferring pensions and retiring allowances upon officers in the Civil Service of the Colony should be repealed; and that provision should be made for the vested interests which have accrued under those Acts, by an abatement of 2£ per cent from the salaries of all officers who are in a position to become entitled to a pension or retiring allowance under those Acts." This resolution ie identical with Mr Yogel's present Bill, except that he proposes to deduct 4 per cent, instead of 2%. But what did Mr Yogel say about it in IS7I ? He objected to it in the strongest terms. He declared that the motion did not take into fair consideration the liabilities which had already accrued. He did not deny that the AeaembJy bad a right) tQ dew m it Uk§4 with salaries,

" but what he wished to urge on the House was that all liabilities up to date were bound to be admitted, for it would be nothing short of repudiation to refuse •to recognise to the fall extent any euch liabilities." He particularly attacked the proposal to make a deduction from the officers' salaries. Mr Wood • had agreed that, however hard it might be on the colony, it was bound to recognise all the liabilities that had grown up. But Mr Vogel "could not sco that the honorable member, in his resolution, gave effect to that opinion; for, iv fact, he said to the civil servants that the Legislature ' would recognise those liabilities if they thernselree would give the m«>ney required for discharging them. That was something like a person who owed another £5, saying, 'If you will give mc £5,1 will pay you the money lowe you.' " The motion, continued Mr Vogel, " was to the effect that if any officer refused to release the colony from its liabilities to him, he should be fined 2\ per cent on his salary to represent the money which the colony owed him. That was what the resolution was in effect, and consequently it was one to which the House could not agree." These opinions were shared by many other speakers. Mr Gisborne, for example, characterised Mr Wood's resolution as an attempt" to confiscate a portion of the property of the Civil servants in order to pay them the rest of their property." W. Reeves, again, considered the abatement from the salaries of officers in a position to become entitled to a pension as an act of injustice. If, as the'mover agreed, the civil servants had vested rights in the pensions, " surely it was not an honest or a fair or just way of meeting those rights to put their hands into the pockets of those gentlemen and make them pay for those rights. He could not think the House would ever consent to such treatment as that." When the Civil Service Amendment Bill was in Committee, a clause providing for deductions to be made from the salaries of officers was struck out; Mr Vogel voting in the majority against it. Yet the very proposal so warmly resisted two years ago, is now contained in an exaggerated form, iv the Bill for which he is responsible. He wants to do the very thing which, when suggested by Mr Wood, he declared to be " nothing short of repudiation." And we dare say he will be supported by his obedient followers, including some of those who in 1871 were as energetic as himself in denouncing the unfairness of Mr Wood's resolution.

The injustice to the Civil Servants is self-evident. The Bill simply gives them the cHbice betweeu two different kinds of loss. They are to be robbed anyhow; the only privilege accorded them is that of choosing in what manner they shall be plundered. If they take the amounts deducted from their salaries (which is merely receiving back their own), they lose the pension which the colony has promised them as an inducement to enter or remain in its service. If, as is probable, they claim the promised allowance, the Government impounds the whole sum it has month after month, and year after year, stopped from their salaries. The object is to recoup to the colony the amount payable on account of pensions. The Bill does not disguise the matter at all. It says plainly that the officers of the Civil Service must be made to contribute to the revenue "for the purpose of lightening the charge on the said revenue entailed by the payment of such allowances." The four per cent is a special income tax imposed upon the Civil Servants in the hopes either that they may be coerced into letting the colony off its bargain, or failing that, that the colony may at least recover from them Borne of its money. As Mr Vogel said, the effect of tho Bill is that if any officer refuses to release the colony from its liabilities to him he will be fined four per cent on his salary to represent the money which the colony owes him. We believe that, in taking the course, the Government are treading on dangerous ground. That their action is most unfair and oppressive to the persons immediately affected by it we have abundantly proved. But that is not all. When the circumstances of the case come to be known it may produce an effect over a much wider circle. Nothing damages the reputation of a country more quickly and irreparably than any appearance of dishonesty, or of inclination to sharp practice, in money matters. And this proposal of Mr Y6gel's is eminently calculated to excite suspicion of the country's good faith. It is tainted with repudiation. It betrays a disposition to escape from a bad bargain by the simple process of annulling it. A Government which could introduce, and a Legislature which could pass, such an Act as this, will not be regarded as a Government and a Legislature with which any one can form engagements with any confidence that, if the result should happen to prove unfavorable to the colony, the terms of the contract will be respected.