POLITICAL TRICKERY

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 53, 26 November 1929, Page 10

POLITICAL TRICKERY

FOOLING PUBLIC SERVANTS LABOUR PARTY AND THE SALARIES ISSUE MOTION FRAMED TO ENSURE REJECTION How the Labour Party sought to gain credit with public servants by advocating salary increases, and at the same time framed their motion in such form as to make its rejection a certainty, is told to-day by the Leader of the Opposition, in answer to Mr. Holland's assertions at Westport. Incidentally Mr. Coates clearly states the views and intentions of the Reform Party. The Leader of the Opposition (the Right Hon. J. G. Coates), in an interview yesterday, pointed out the extremely misleading nature of the speech of Mr. H. E. Holland reported as having been delivered at Westport on Friday last. “The fact is,” said Mr. Coates, “that when the Reform Government reduced the salaries of the public servants (including members of Parliament) in 1922 the whole country was suffering the effects of a very severe slump. The economic situation was almost critical, and the Government had appealed .to the whole community to take in sail to enable it to weather the storm. “So far as the public servants were concerned, there were only two alternatives: either for all State employees to accept a percentage reduction, or else for the departments to make ends meet by discharging a large number of their employees. This was the situation in 1922; and the Government of the day was proud of the way in which the public servants had then faced the realities of the situation and accepted the adjustment “At the same time the Reform Government promised the public servants that their position would be reviewed at the earliest possible moment that the finances of the country permitted. Further, the salaries of nearly all public servants were afterwards increased as a result of reclassification.”

Having given an undertaking before the General Election that after the elections (at latest, by April, 1929) the Government, when regrading and reclassification were under review, would consider the amount of increase to be granted to‘the public servants, he (Mr. Coates) suggested in the House last session an immediate increase of £lO in the maxima for men on the £240, £265 and £295 limits. This suggestion was put forward before the half-yearly financial statement was presented and when the United Government was still keeping the country in the dark about the financial position. Labour—United Sham Fight. At the same time Mr. H. E. Holland and the Labour Party were engaged in a sham fight with their friends, the United Government The Labour Party produced a motion recommending the Government to make an increase in public service salaries; but this motion was cunningly worded in such a way as to ensure that it could not be carried. It was suggested in the House that the wording of the motion might not have been the result of the unaided work of Labour members; or, if it’were their own work, it was certainly designed to avoid embarrassing the Government by any risk of its going through. There was the quite unnecessary and irrelevant reference to the original “cut” as “an unjust levy.” This expression—in effect, a vote of condemnation on the previous Government—could not have been included for any other purpose than that of deterring Reform members from supporting it If Mr. Holland and the Labour Party were genuine in their desire to assist the public servants, and not actuated, as appearances suggested, solely by considerations of party tactics, why could they not have confined their motion to the single essential of recommending the increase in salaries? Mr. Coates said that he and Reform members in the House had clearly and emphatically stated that they were in favour of such increase had the matter been left at that. £l5 Increase Advocated. “Now that the half-yearly figures are available and the revenue found to be in a very healthy condition,” said Mr. Coates, “I wish to state, with a full sense of responsibility, and with intimate knowledge both of the capacity of the departments to pay and also of the struggles of the lower-paid officers of the public service, that I am prepared to increase by £l5 per annum the maxima for men at the £240, £265, and £295 limits. In saying this I know the feelings of my associates in Parliament.”