FIJI’S CIVIL SERVANTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 August 1923, Page 7

FIJI’S CIVIL SERVANTS

EIGHT HOURS TOO TIRING. SUVA, July 23, A very amusing case was put lorward by tne Government representatives on a motion Oy tire Colonial secretary to curtail the working hours of the Civil servants from seven Hours per day to six hours. It is only some few months ago that the Government agreed, on the advice of the Economy Committee, to make the Civil servants work from 8 a.m. till 4 p.m., instead of from 9 till 4. It was explained that, in order to get to work at 8 a.m., officials had to rise in the dark, and it was alleged that Hie medical department had stated that such Jong hours tended to inefficiency. This statement was derided by the elected members, and they expressed amusement at the Governor’s serious statement that medical evidence held that seven hours was too fatiguing. It was pointed out by one elected member tliat for 43 years he had worked for much longer hours in Fiji, and tliey had never impaired his efficiency. 'The Governor, however, put the cap on things when he said that, alter he left the university, he had worked for a year from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in an office, and then had worked for another year on the “practical side,” at what he did not explain, from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m. one week, and from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next, and his experience

was that excessive duty was fatal to good spirits and efficiency. Mr Thomas got home a very dry thrilst when he said that he hoped that, when he brought forward a motion for an eight-hour day in Fiji, for the working man, whose wife had to get up much before daylight to make his breakfast, the Government would remember that their own medical ac - viser was averse to more than six hours, if efficiency was to be the common rule. This sally was greeted with laughter, and it is said that His Excellency that night said that Mi Thomas had rather turned the table, on the service. . It will be interesting to see just how far the Government will follow tne golden rule of “Do unto others as ye would, etc.”