"A SMOKE SCREEN”

Evening Star, Issue 20312, 22 October 1929, Page 8

"A SMOKE SCREEN”

TELEGRAPH STAFFS PROTEST [Special to the * Stak.’] AUCKLAND, October 22. The Auckland telegraph staff has sent the following telegram to Sir Joseph Ward, the Hon. J. G. Coates, and Mr H. Holland, M.P.“ Eor your information the P. and T. Department is offering promotion to 200 men of the clerical division to class 6, with a maximum salary of £320 per annum. This, in our opinion, means that 200 men are to receive ‘ cuts ’ back and a large majority are to bo left lamenting, which is most contemptible and will create further grave dissatisfaction in our service, li the country can pay an additional £200,000 for loan conversion purposes and make a gift oi two and a-balf millions to a cable merger without a murmur, surely £200,000, which makes up our schedule demands, can be complied with As a revenue-producing department we do not cost the Government or the public a penny, and we submit that the departmental depreciation account is nothing more than a smoko screen to hide our just claims.”