RESTORING CUTS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 226, 20 June 1936, Page 10

RESTORING CUTS

Members of Parliament To Benefit EARLY LEGISLATION No Victimisation of Workers The ■cute made in the salaries of members of Parliament during the depression will be restored in the same way as those for other workers in the legislation which will be brought down by the Government when Parliament resumes on July 21. As with other salaries and wages, members will have retrospective payment- from July 1. This was indicated by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, in an interview yesterday. “The Bill restoring wages to the 1931 level will not he in the form of amending legislation, but will be a separate new measure entirely,” Mr. Savage said. “We intend that restoration in the public service and outside it should he effected by the one Bill. It is natural that members of Parliament will be included in the legislation, for, like other workers, they suffered cuts during the depression.” Mr. Savage made it clear that the Government would take steps necessary to ensure that workers were not victimised because of the increase in wages following the restoration, and that the Government would not countenance dismissals purely on the ground that they were warranted by the increase. It was not likely, he said, that the Government would pave the wav for the workers and wage-earners generally to benefit and then allow that benefit to be taken away from them.