CIVIL SERVANTS' SALARIES.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17317, 1 December 1921, Page 10

CIVIL SERVANTS' SALARIES.

TO THE EDITOR OF ,; TBI PRESS." Sir, —Referring to "Harm Labourer's" and "Producer's'; letters regarding civil servants' salaries, it is apparently forgotten that* before> tne war butter was Is 3d, now Is 10d, increase nearly 50 per cent.: sugar was 3d. now i 4Jd, increase over SO per cent.; bread, and od, now 6}d and 7d, about 33 per cent, increase. My last suit cost £3, before the. war better material cost £5, increase GO per cent. So it would npoear if farm labourers' wages have fallen, the price of farm produce ha 3 not and tho fanners, as usual, are doing' well. Tliev made money during the war (some made fortunes). The Government helped them. The prioe paid in New Zealand for wheat was more, I understand, than what was paid for wheat imported from Australia. Ihiring the war, as the cost of living went up. a bonus about twelve months behind the rise in prices was given to civil servants, but nowhere near the. same proportion. Before prices started to come down the increase in the ecst i of living was 50 to 60 per cent., the increase bv bonus to civil servants was 10 to 20 per cent. For the last rise in cost of. living civil servants got no bonus. I am sure they would agree to' take a reduction in wages to pre-war rates if the cost of living was reduced j to the same as pre-war, but with farm--. «"-s asking them to be reduced, and at 1 tho same time their own produce 50 per oent. higher, well, it makes one inclined to swear at him to tr.v and knock some reasoning into him.— Yours, etc.. NOT A CIVIL SERVANT.