CIVIL SERVANTS' BONUS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 108, 8 May 1923, Page 10

CIVIL SERVANTS' BONUS

LABOUR MEMBERS REPLY TO MR. MASSEY.

(IT TILUXAPB.—PRISI AIMCUTMH.)

CHBISTCHU.RCH. 7th Mar.

At a meeting of Canterbury Labour members of Parliament, Messis, H. Howard, D. G. Sullivan, H. J. Armstrong, and J. M'Combs being present,, it was decided to issue a reply to the Prime Minister's latest pronouncement regarding tho reduction jn the cost-of-living bonus to Civil servants. This reply states, inter alia, that the Prime Minister had made many attempts to justify what the Government had done in reducing the incomes of public servants, and the Prime Minister's propaganda would not convince the Public Servants' Association, because they knew the facts. The propaganda was intended for the elector who was unacquainted with the real facts. In June, 1920, an agreement was arrived at, and a promise made by the Prime Minister that for' everj 10 per cent, increase in the cost-of-liv-ing. or 10 per cent decrease there was to be a readjustment of the bonus. In 1921 when there had been a considerable increase in the cost of living, the Prime Minister was asked to honour this promise, but instead of doing so he repudiated his undertaking and said there was "no agreement to readjustment." Mr. Millar, of the Public Service Association, Mr. Combe, of the Post and Telegraph Association, and Mr. Mack, of the 'A.S.R.S., all emphatically assert such a promise had been made. Mr.' Massey's failure to. fulfil his promise to increase the bonuses in proportion to the increase in the coat of living and the injustice of calculating tl>e cost-of-living percentages on the. food groups only had reduced the standard of living of tjie public servants of the Dominion, well b.elow the 1914 standard.