THE New Zealand Herald FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 1882.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6289, 13 January 1882, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 1882.

« Theiie is no worse economy than to under-pay public servants, and if this has been the case with regard to the employes of the Harbour Board it was quite right that then- salaries should be increased. The course pursued, by the Board at its last meeting of raising salaries all round may be justified by the circumstances, but as the incren.se which has been voted is public money it would have been more satisfactory to have known the reasons for the change. The Board has had the pleasant office of making itself agreeable to everyone, our duty is the less amiable one of asking why this wholesale change ? Here we have an addition to the expenditure of the Board amounting to no less than £385, within a trifle of £400. And this may be a permanent increase, because although the salaries are voted annually they cannot be increased one year and reduced the next. A curious feature of the case is that the Board's servants generally appear to have been content with their remuneration. If there has been discontent it has been kept uncommonly quiet. Nothing lias been made public with regard to it. It was scarcely the duty of the Board to revise the salaries on abstract grounds, and would not lie even if it

had surplus funds. Those who contribute to the Board's revenue have claims on its consideration as well as its employes, and these appear to have been disregarded by the large addition to the wages account. It rnav certainly be said that although the Board's revenue is increasing it is exceeded by the demands upon it. The new dock means a large liability for interest : then again there are many works of importance urgently required. Prudence dictated that all current expenditure should be kept within the narrowest limits that the circumstances would permit. Some strong justification, therefore, was required for the course adopted, and it would be satisfactory to know what it

We do not affirm that the Board has ei-red, because we have not the material on which to form a judgment, but it looks very much like it, and there is some proof of it. It were easy to understand that the consideration of salaries would disclose instances in which a readjustment was necessary, and an increase here and there, but for the life of us we cannot understand an all round increase, unless it has been the result of a comparison with what is paid in other colonies for similar services. But if the pay was sutiicient, and there was no general discontent, no general demand for an increase, the gratuitous action of the Board must be deemed injudicious, and unfair to those who might have expected that the Board's generous mood would have operated in the direction of a reduction of harbour charges. We shall not accept the invidious task of specifying salaries which appear to have been adequate, but confine ourselves to remarking that the higher salaries generally appear to have been amply sufficient for the duties discharged. We have four increases of £50, three of them to salaries already amounting to £450. Well, that amount appears a by no means despicable remuneration for the duties performed. There are numbers of persons with more onerous duties whose emolument is far less. To the small increases, two of £16 and one of £8, no objection can be made. It is always possible to sympathise with the man whose small wages will well bear an increase. The course taken by the Board will make it very popular with its employes, but it may be questioned whether an addition of nearly £400 a year to salaries will have the approval of its constituents.