CIVIL SERVICE SUPERANNUATION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 86, 13 April 1907, Page 4

CIVIL SERVICE SUPERANNUATION.

If the scheme embodied in it can be shown to be practicable, if, that is to say, it can be pla«d upon an actuarially sound basis with initial assistance, the Civil Service Superannuation Bill ought to be carried during the forthcoming session. There are several reasons why the members of the civil service should be guaranteed against want in ,Id age, but the, trst pha that may be put tcnvard to suppoit the scheme is tnat its principle is rapidly securing almost universal adoption. Formerly as is well-known, the civil servant got a pension, as he still does in other

countries, and the object of that practice was the attraction of the best brains to the work of the country. Under conditions which, we are afraid, must be called ideal,. such«an object might have been attained, but it did not take New Zealanders long to discover that good billets j with retiring allowances at the *erid of them, went, not- to the owners of brains, but to the possessors of "influence." We have improved the personnel while we have reduced the emolument; possibly we have reached ,the limit to which this process Jioay be'-carried with profit. The service, though still far too easily accessible to influence, is now susceptible of conversion,, -when the strong hand comes, into a'reasonably perfect machine, and the members of it ought to be .treated with - whatever degree of .consideration is needful to

preserve efficiency. "It is essential that the service should be regarded as a career, and not as,a temporary expedient, to be exchanged for anything that offers a pound .or two more in wages.