POLITICS AND EFFICIENT SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 117, 20 May 1939, Page 8

POLITICS AND EFFICIENT SERVICE

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —"Square Deal" thinks a teacher should get the same salary as a doctor. He says that the teachers have a far higher cultural equipment than the average medical man, and that time and expense in acquiring their professional training cannot vary • much. Putting aside the amusing comparison of time and expense in acquiring training, let us compare the work of doctors and teachers.

A doctor is likely to be called to a case at any hour of the night or day. Let the ordinary working or professional man, with 40 working hours and 128 hours for his own use, try to imagine what that is like. Imagine the skill and nerve required for difficult operations, then ask yourself if you would change places with the doctor even for his salary, and his bad debts.

Add to this the voluntary work given to the hospitals and compare the work with that of the teacher with short working hours and m&re holidays than any other working man. With all the suffering, sickness, . accidents, pain, and death amongst us, surely the most biased could -not think of the doctors going on strike. Politie-s should not be allowed to interfere with the efficient service going on all through the hours. We should not allow Government red tape, means tests, multitudinous forms, to impede the machine. We should not allow attention to-vital, necessitous cases be impeded and delayed because everybody can demand free attention. I would not like to see fellow-New Zealanders driven out for sticking to their principles and freedom. —I am, etc., P. NICHOLSON.