OVER PAID CIVIL SERVANT.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 21 February 1931, Page 6

OVER PAID CIVIL SERVANT.

WAGE STANDARDS. (To the Editor.) Sir, —"‘Old Timer” states that the Premier is receiving great praise for taking the hold step of reducing Civil Servants’ wages by 10 per cent, but who, may I ask, are those who are giving that praise? Of course the financial institutions, and those persons who have full and plenty, coupled with the employers of labour; they are the only persons who are pleased with the Prime Minister’s statement. As ‘‘Old Timer” is one of those “poor starving farmers,” let me remind him that the proposed 10 per cent reduction in wages will have the effect of finishing that squeezing process to which he has been subjected to to pay the high salaries of the Civil Service, for even your correspondent will have to admit that the man on the basic wage at present will have to deny himself of something that is of necessity to him and his dependents, as the present wage does not run to luxuries; therefore in my case I shall do with less butter, cheese and meat to offset the 10 per cent reduction, and if every worker does the same the poor struggling farmer will be holding further “rallies” to bring down wages another 10 per cent. Your correspondent suggests that Mr Forbes .should have reduced the wages by one-third and thev would have been well paid for the service they give, but as “Old Timer” must be over 70 years. I can excuse him for such an erratic statement. If wages are reduced by 10 per cent tlie workers’ purchasing power is reduced l»v that amount, and as we know from past, experience that the cost of living does not fall correspondingly it means that he must do without something that he requires to enable him to exist. One result will be more children attending school without shoes and stockings (there is enough of them at present): another will he a reduced consumption of dairy produce, resulting in a further decline of the “poor cookies’ ” income. 'Flic labouring man that aspires to £IOOO house (as your correspondent refers to) is in exactly the same position as the farmers that tried to buy a farm instead of living ; within his means. In other words, thev hit off more than they could eat without causing them a pain. The .j cookies are feeling that pain now, and they are sempaling and lettinpeveryone know. Let me remind “Old Timer” that/although the farmer is l

tlie backbone of the country, there is not one of them on the land for the benefit of the country. He is just there for what lie can get out of it, and now that the price of his products have fallen everyone has to heln him. Did lie advocate an increase in Civil Servants’ salaries when he was receiving 2s to 2s 6d per pound for his butter-fat? —I am, etc., CIVIL SERVANT.