Manawatu Daily Times Party Unrest

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6835, 16 April 1932, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times Party Unrest

During last week-end many stories were afloat concerning unrest among the rank and file of the Coalition party in the House of Representatives, and when members returned to their labours it soon became evident that all the stories were not without foundation. On Monday evening some twenty Coalitionists, mostly early arrivals, met in Parliament Buildings, and discussed the National Expenditure Adjustment Bill with a freedom that might not have been altogether acceptable to the Speaker had he been in the chair. Some of them, indeed, were frank to an extreme. Their main complaint was that the proposed scale of wage cuts did not adjust the burdens of the sufferers equitably. Their alternative to the Government’s proposal was the elimination of the Public Service wage reductions and the imposition of a universal wage tax of between Is 3d and Is 6d in the pound. It certainly looks as if this would be the more equitable method of distributing the national burden.

Both, the Bight Hon. G. W. Forbes and his ally, the Bight Hon. J. G. Coates, have been more or less embarrassed by the appeals of their respective followers in the House to substitute a wage tax in place of a wage reduction, an arrangement which would leave the civil servants with some hope of recovering the losses to which they are at present condemned. Mr. Forbes stated’that several United members of the Coalition had freely stated in the lobbies that they were dissatisfied with some of the provisions of the National Expenditure Bill and might be compelled to vote against it. Mr. Coates when questioned on the subject was less reticent than his leader had been. It was correct, he said, that some members of his party had indicated disapproval of certain proposals of the Government. They objected to wage cuts and naturally were placed in an awkward position. Both Uniteds and Reformers, it would seem, arc perplexed in this matter.

A good deal of sympathy is being expressed for the lowerpaid public servants who find themselves thrust back in opportunity and emolument with only the remotest prospect of recovering their former positions. The chairman of the Wellington section of the Public Service Association provides a picture of a junior officer who is far from being among the worst sufferers. “In his fifth year,” we are told, “he receives £139 10s per annum. In his sixth year he receives £l7l per annum. By the loss of this increment, in addition to the 5 per cent, provided by the Finance Bill, the total deduction becomes £3B 9s 6d, or 23 per cent, of the wage of £l7l per annum he otherwise would have received.” It is married State servants of this type, and not Ministers of the Crown, we are told, who head the list in the matter of sacrifice. This surely is an incongruity Mr. Forbes and his colleagues should mend.

The fate of the National Expenditure Adjustment Bill still hangs in the balance, and the parties in the House of Representatives probably will have much to say about the measure before it is passed on to the Legislative Council where it is sure to encounter a good deal of more or less ineffective criticism. There are predictions of strong opposition being offered to the clauses in the Bill providing for a second public service cut, and it is quite possible the opposition to the measure will secure some concession to the loAver branches of the civil service. This, however, depends largely upon the hearing of the Labour party, which in its desire to discredit the Government with a large section of the electors may refuse to accept any concession of less magnitude than its whole demand. In such company both United Coalitionists and Reform Coalitionists would find the leader of the Opposition a somewhat embarrassing companion. Still there is a chance of Mr. Holland preferring a half loaf to no bread. ,