Manawatu Civil Services Meeting

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6627, 14 August 1931, Page 2

Manawatu Civil Services Meeting

CONFERENCE MATTERS REVIEWED Mr. H. B. Reid (chairman) outlined some important business to a general meeting of the Palmerston North branch of the Public Service Association, held tins week. Ho dealt mainly with matters considered at the conference in Wellington which he recently attended as tho delegate for the Manawatu section. Counteracting Propaganda The chairman said that possibly the most important question was that of counteracting propaganda, through the press am 1 otherwise, directed against the pub. j service. Tho Palmerston North section had raised the matter in conference, and a new policy had been adopted, namely, that a special publicity committee should bo set up to deal with irregular statements . when they appeared. Sectional committees and the chairman of each section wore given full power to act on theiT own initiative in correcting such statements. Mr. Reid pointed out that so long as the service acted weakly in submitting to attacks on it, so long would it bo fair game for critics. The conference had adopted a new policy of defending the public service from these attacks, and the old “psychology of fear’’ was a thing of tho past. Ho mentioned that the same attack had been made on tho British public service in 1926 as had been made recently in New ' Zealand, and quoted some illuminating passages which showed that the same methods were employed. One statement said: “The spendthrift, when forced to economise, naturally turns to those economies which are least unpleasant to himself.” The same motive had, he said applied in New Zealand, and it was more a desire to save income tax that had moved opponents to attack the service. The writer had added: “The public Telies mainly on works of fiction for its historical facts, and a long list of writers, from Trollope and Dickens onwards, have branded the civil service as idle, over-paid, incompetent and bureaucratic. Many newspapers which ought to know better foster this belief, and there is a current idea that enormous savings could be effected by weeding out of the civil service all its unprofitable members, and by reducing the pay and increasing the work of the remainder. As a matter of fact, the entire abolition of the civil service in Britain would of itself only reduce the national expenditure by 7 per cent., and this would involve the disappearance of our postal service. If we retained our postal service in Britain and disbanded the rest of the service, the saving would be about 2£ per cent.” The writer, further dealing with the attacks on the service, had stated: “Silence in the face of criticism is the tradition of the civil service, and it is a pity that that silence should be broken; but the best disciplined troops cannot be persuaded to withhold their fire in the face of continuous attacks by snipers, and last November it was found that the Albert hall, London, was not largo enough to contain the host of civil servants of all grades who met to protest against the attacks which had been made -on them. The value of any opinion on the civil service depends firstly on the possession of wide knowledge, and secondly : on the absence of prejudice.” Palmerston North Congratulated The chairman, after setting out remits in detail, said that the president of the conference had asked him t’o convey the congratulations of tho whole conference to Palmerston North on its activities during the past year, delegates joining in the message. Tho president, on behalf of tho conference, had also made the request that the Palmerston North delegate should prepare a special article for general publication dealing with the public service and economy, and this Mr. Reid had agreed to. A vote of thanks to the delegate was moved by Mr. F. E. Cameron, seconded by Mr. T. E. Davidson and carried.