The Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1916.

Evening Star, Issue 16195, 17 August 1916, Page 6

The Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1916.

The members of Parliament have disNearly a i" 518 t0 tJieir oonstituNatiohaJ enciei » enough pleased, Scandal. no doubt, w i* n s themselves on tile whole. Their legislative efforts are suspended for another year. What is done cannot now be tindone, and what is omitted cannot be supplied. The work of the session just ended must )mr the strain of a year of war, x to be marked, we doubt not, by the outpouring of unprecedented energy in breaking through the strongholds of German militarism. Probably never in tho history of our Empire will stuch heavy drafts be made upon out human and material resources. The war isnot over yet: its voracious appetite for men and money is far from being Satisfied. And we must feed the War God to repletion. Gannon must not lack provender nor soldiers provisions. But the Empire is poorer at the opening of the third year- of war than, it was at the opening of the second year. Gertainly its resources are much better •mobilised, but two years'of conflict have not been maintained without reducing their magnitudo. It is a truism that, let tho war last long enough, and all tho belligerents would be overcome, -with bankruptcy. If, then, economy was the fitting watchword with which Mr Asquith opened the secdnd year of hostilities, the word should -be heard like tho clangor of a great bell over all the cities of the Empire at this the opening of the third year of djre war. Quite obviously tho need of thrift has abated none of its urgency with the passage of time; quite clearly the urgency has become accentuated. Twelve months ago Mr Asquith characterised extravagance a* inimical to the national interests; to-day Mr M'Kenna describes it as "treasonable and criminal." In the light of the foregoing, ]et a moment of attention be addressed to the bonus granted by our Parliament to Civil Servants. No less a sum than £400,000 is to be drawn from the Consolidated Revenue of this country professedly to relieve the employees of the State from the burden of tho increased Cost of Living What shall be said about it? As- soon as the proposal was made in the Budget we promptly condemned it. Our first word upon its publication was one of unqualified condemnation of this feature of it. We called upon members of Parliament to protect the country from the political iniquity threatened by the National Government. In this attitude we were not singular; betore many days had elapsed from the delivery of the Financial Statement there swept, like a tidal wave a clamor of protest from the North Cape' to the Bluff. The protest has been unheeded by tho Government. and bv Parliament • and in this matter, a 6 in the matter of the' early closing of hotel bars, the people's representatives in Parliament assembled have earned the unenviable distinction of flouting and condemning the unmistakable wishes of the electors. We would ask: What, precisely is the inwardness of this grant to the Civil Servants? In the first place, it is a gross piece of national extravagance, which cannot escape the attachment of the epithets of " treasonable " and " criminal" employed by the Chancellor of the British Exchequer. The people of this Dominion had a right to expect that their National Government would not betray the national interests at a critical time like this. In the second place, the grant is a piece of downright imposition upon the general taxpayer. Parliament is not the special conservator of the interests of the Civil Service. It 6 duties and responsibilities to the men and women who are not upon the paysheet of the State are not less binding. By what process of reasoning do the Government justify making lean the pockets of the non-Civil .Servants of the Dominion m order that the pockets of the latter may bo fattened? Has the war suddenly made equitable the principle of robbing P*ter to pay Paid? There is a disposition in certain quarters to forget that the only source of the £400,000 bonus i s the earnings of those people who are not the paternal favorites of the Government. There is no magic way of replenishing the Consolidated Fund. What the public servants draw out of it must first be put into it by the taxpayers. Even the politician's mind, with its wonderful facility for making the worse appear the better reason, must be hard put to it to furnish a plausible pretext for subjecting one person with an income of £3lO a year to a special War Tax in order to provide another pea-son with the same income with a bonus. In the third place, the grant to the Civil Service violates the principle of equality of sacrifice for war, which ought to receive respectful attention at the hands of the National Government.

Does the Cost of Living press more hardly upon those employed by the State than upon those privately employed? It cannot be contended that it does, although might be possible to argue the opposite with eome force. At any rate, in no instance have public servants had to suffer a diminution of monetary income. The purchasing power of the shilling has, of course, declined with them as with all others, but the number of ghillings has been maintained. There are many in the community of which such cannot be said. A considerable number of small business men And others have had to submit to a reduction of the number of shillings of their incomes, as well as to a reduction of the quantity of goods per shilling. It requires the possession of some intellectual or moral obliquity to find anything commendable in still further reducing the shillings of such straitened men that the unreduced shillings of the public servants may be increased. Certainly men engaged in privately-controlled industry are not less deserving of a bonus than public so: vants. The fact is the latter class is not the most needy. Nothing reveals better the grave injustice of the objectionable bonus than the position of boy s and unmarried men and women, in the Government's employment. There is a very large number of these, especially in the teaching profession. Upon this class the burden of the Cost of Living has fallen least. Compare the position of a schoolmistress with a working j man who has supplemented the benefit to the State of his labor by the gift of numerous children. The wages of the man are less than those of the woman. With the lessened wages he has to fill six mouths, say, while she has but one to fill. Contemplating this inequality, the National Government were seized with a righteouspassion—what, to remove it? Xo, to ac- v centuate it. "We will give," they said, " the unmarried woman with the relatively "large wage and no dependents a bonus, " and we will leave unassisted the married "man with the relatively small wage and " many dependents."