The Lyttelton Times FRIDAY, OCT. 25, 1893. INDUSTRIOUS CIVIL SERVANTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIV, Issue 10786, 25 October 1895, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times FRIDAY, OCT. 25, 1893. INDUSTRIOUS CIVIL SERVANTS.

Ought Government servants to be allowed to engage in work outside of their official duties ? The answer obviously depends upon circumstances.’ Even the British Government finds it advantageous, as many others do, to permit certain post office and other officials to engage in avocations altogether apart from those for which they receive Government pay. Bat, outside of officials who have specific permission, ought not the rule to be that no Government servant should work at any other calling? The Government of Now South Wales has just found it necessary to issue an order forbidding members of its Civil Service to engage in outside work, because of complaints that its employes have been unfairly competing with other workers. It is clear that a very far - reaching principle is involved in this order, assuming it to he as absolute and unconditional as the cable message represents. It looks on the face of it very much like a restraint upon the industrious and acquisitive. If some people, by reason of their greater strength, vitality or cleverness are able to supplement their incomes by working after hours ; nay more, if because of their small wages or large families, extra work becomes a necessity, why should the State step iu to prevent that work being done ? Suppose a railway clerk to be competent to give shorthand lessons, and a telephone cadette to be inclined to give tuition in music after hours, it esems hard that they should be debarred from eking out their scanty incomes by these means. People in private employment are not usually restricted as to how they may occupy themselves in their own time, and it may be argued that there is no reason why Government employes should be treated differently. These arguments are not devoid of plausibility, and they will be endorsed in many quarters. But the important governing fact to remember in considering the question is the very different relation which the State occupies to the units of the community as compared with that, occupied by the private employer. Most civilised Governments have come to recognise it to be their duty to regulate the conditions of labour, and in some cases they extend their control even to hours of work and rates of wages. They thus modify the law of competition, which leads private employers to endeavour to obtain the maximum of work for the minimum remuneration. A Government that insists upon imposing conditions upon private employers must be consistent in its treatment of its own workers. It must not overwork them, nor must it allow them to overwork themselves, and it must pay them at any rate subsistence wages. But while doing all this, it must see that the worker renders full value for the wages paid. If a man doing heavy work for the Government is found to be engaging in similar work after hours, for wages, he ought to he compelled to desist, or otherwise to relinquish his Government post. There were complaints, some years ago, that men employed in the railway workshops at Auckland were in the habit of employing their spare time in doing engineering work in competition with private firms, and there have been more recent complaints of railway men at Lyttelton acting in a similar way. These are instances where the rule ought to be strictly applied. A man who works on the railway, in particular, ought to have all his energies fresh and his wakefulness unimpaired during the hours he is on duty, and he can hardly be in that condition if he devotes several hours of the morning to a, milk business, or assists his wife iu the work of a boarding-house. No doubt, in a broad sense, “ change of occupation is rest/!.

but the change ought to he complete, A man need not necessarily he idle, but if he is a Government employe he ought to be prevented from competing with other workmen by toiling after hours at any calling for pecuniary reward. If the State acts up to its duty by giving its employes fair wages, no hardship can result from a wise application of a rule against competitive work. Our Government might well call for a report on this subject from the heads of departments, and if fonnd necessary ought to issue a similar order to that just promulgated in New South Wales.