Civil Servants’ “Cuts”

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 223, 17 June 1936, Page 13

Civil Servants’ “Cuts”

Sir, —As a young ctoil servant and one of the lowest paid. I am keenly disappointed at the decision of the Government not to make the restoration of salaries retrospective. As the Labour Party has always maintained that the salary reductions should not have been imposed in the first place, what justification then is there for the continuance of these reductions for the six months they have been ill office?

In niy opinion file action of the Labour Government, by which it has received six months’ work from its civil servants at the reduced rates' imposed by the last Government, is tantamount to imposing the reduction itself for that period. If the reductions should not have been made in 1931 and 1932, then surely they should not have been made in 1936. The Labour members voted for full restoration last year; that means they were in favour of the State employees receiving their reductions back from July, 1935, so the least they can do is to make the restoration retrospective as from the beginning of the year. As one Labour member stated last year, "it's only their own money back.” The civil servants, realising that the Government could not do everything at once, patiently waited their turn, having full confidence in the integrity of the personnel of the Government, and now they are being treated with a niggardliness reminiscent of the Forbes-Coates regime. lam not bitter against the Labour Government, but disappointed in it. —I am, etc., E.B. Palmerston North, Juue 15.