FIJI'S CIVIL SERVANTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18471, 7 August 1923, Page 4

FIJI'S CIVIL SERVANTS.

EIGHT HOURS TOO! TIRING.

governok's EARLY CAREER.

i'./ [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] ' - ■"■; ;■; SUVA. July 23. A very amusing case was put forward by the Government representatives on a motion" by the Colonial Secretary to curtail the working hours of the Civil servants from seven hours per day to six hours. -

It is only some few months ago that the .Government agreed, on tho advice of the Economy Committee, to make the Civil servants work from: 8 a.m. till 4 p.m., instead of from 9 till 4. It was explained that, in order to get to work at 8 a.m., officials had to rise in the dark,' and it was alleged that the medical department had stated that such long hours tended to inefficiency.

This statement was derided by the elected members, and they , expressed amusement at '■■ the Governor's serious statement that medical evidence held that seven hours was too fatiguing. It was pointed out by one elected member that for 43 years he bad worked for much longer; hours in Fiji, and they had never impaired his efficiency. The Governor, however, put the cap on things when he said that, * after he left the university, he had worked for a year from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in an office, and then had worked for another year on the " practical side," at what he : did not explain, from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m. one week, and from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next, and his experience was that excessive duty was fatal to good spirits and efficiency. Mr. Thomas got home a very dry thrust, when he said that he hoped that, when he brought forward a motion for an eighthour day in ■ Fiji, for the working man, whose wife had to get up much before daylight to make his breakfast, th© Government would remember that their own medical adviser was averse to more than six hours, if efficiency was to be the common rule. This sally was greeted with laughter, and it is said that His Excellency that night said that Mr. Thomas had rather turned- the tables on the service.; v'-v '.:.•'.', '-V; ; - ■ :-v /-|1:.,'..

It will be interesting to see just how far tho.Government will follow the golden rale oil;" Do unto others as ye would etc."