A LIVELY GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume VI, Issue 1010, 18 July 1883, Page 2

A LIVELY GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT.

The Post thus comments on the nice state of affairs exhibited in a return of the salaries paid to officers" of the Government Insurance Department : Insurers in the Government Life Office must have had their eyes opened rather unpleasantly wide by the very suggestive return presented to Parliament a day or two ago. They have been accustomed to be periodically assured that the Government Life Insurance Department was being worked at a vastly less cost than any private office, and that the lai’ge savings thus effected would all go towards swelling the comfortable bonus looming in the future. Most people, after perusing the return in question, will remark that this may be so, but in that case the said private offices must be managed very expensively indeed. For it is hard to appreciate the economy of a system of management under which one officer, who is apparently classed as fourth in order of rank, draws pay at the rate of L 2502 per annum, an absentee medical officer (who enjoys unlimited right of private practice as well) L4OO, and his substitute L4OO, also with unrestricted right of private practice. ‘ These figures demand prompt and full attention, and they will take a great deal of explanation to make the public in general, and insurers in particular, swallow them without making wry faces. A.s to the other salaries, we do not purpose to analyse them just now. We have nothing to say against the Commissioner’s LBOO, the Actuary’s L6OO, or the Superintendent of Agents’ L 750, which are not at all high salaries for really capable men in such responsible positions. Neither do we object to the clerks’ salaries, which are low enough in all conscience. Whether or not such a vast army of clerks is requisite to perform the work of the department is a question which an outside and non-professional critic cannot competently determine. But this enormous haul of commission by the Superintendent of Agents and his subordinates seem to us outrageous ancl w-holly indefensible. We are told that faur of the canvassers last year earned over LSOO each, one receiving LOl4, or LI 14 more that the salary

of the head of his department, and very nearly as much as that of a Cabinet Minister. Possibly their travelling expenses may have made a hole in their receipts; but, even so, they must have done remarkably well at the cost of the insurers. But they are mere little minnows as compared with their whale of a Superintendent, who grasped no less than L 2952 in commissions during the year, or more than the combined salaries of the Premier {and another Minister, and nearly as much as three Ministers exclusive of the Premier, receive. It is true he generally foregoes his nominal salary of L4oo, which is deducted from his nearly L3OOO of Commission, but even so he drew the agreeable income of L 2502, all of which, of course, comes out of the insurers pockets. We should like very much to know, and the public have a right to insist on knowing, by what authority i so perposterous an arrangement as this was entered into. It appears to us that Ministers are highly censurable for having sanctioned such an engagement, and we are at a loss to understand how it. could have been recommended, as we presume it must have been, by the Commissioner. It will perhaps be urged that this is an essential part of the present system of “ pushing” the business. Tf so we plainly state that in our opinion thereis a great deal too much “ pushing” and “ touting” for new business to be seemly in a Government department, and this wholesale concession of large commissions involves consideration risk of unsatisfactory results. We should like to know, too, why an absentee medical officer and his locum tenens should each be paid L4OO per annum, notwithstanding that they retain the full power of private practice. We can see no justification for paying two officers in full for the work of one, especially as the functions of the office are to a large extent formal, and actual work of examining applicants being performed by other medical practitioners. It is high time some light should be]let in on these matters, and we hope the whole system will receive a thorough investigation. Nothing less will satisfy the payers of premiums which are paid over to one officer alone to the tune of over L 2500 per annum.