TEN PER CENT. CUT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20977, 14 September 1931, Page 13

TEN PER CENT. CUT.

Sir, —Your correspondents, "Not a Civil Servant" and '-'A Reduced Wage Worker," have each fired a squib at salaries of bank officials in New Zealand, and they have each apparently acted on impulse rather than from logic, or from a knowledge of facts. In the first place the salaries of bank officers are not paid by the State, and so do not affect the taxpayer. Nor should they concern correspondents whose knowledge of facts is limited to hearsay. Certain of the banks have already applied salary "cuts" in the reduction of annual bonuses previously paid. So much for the statement made that your correspondent had been advised by bank officials that they had experienced no wage reductions. Such statements must have come from some very favoured individuals, or (moro likely) from some junior officials whose salaries have so far been exempt from the priming knife. In relation to the work done, the responsibility carried and the external demands on the bank official he has never been at all pampered in salary matters. Indeed, for many years he was one of the worst paid of any class of professional men. During the boom times it was quite a common thing for many bank men to use their capital for living expenses, and many of them have not vet recovered (nor are they likely to) from the effects of those days. How easy it is to recommend economies and cuts for other people. Oughto Bemore.