IS IT EXTRAVAGANCE?

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8482, 17 July 1913, Page 6

IS IT EXTRAVAGANCE?

Mr Laureuson made a very strong point in his speech on the Address-in-Roply when lie contrasted the £6OO a year paid by the " Reform” Government to Mr Royd Garlick, without calling for applications for the position, with the salaries drawn by responsible heads of departments of mature experience and a lifetime’s devoted service. Mr lloyd Garlick, who is a club-swinging and muscular development gentleman of some local reputation, steps gaily from the position of masseur in tho Wellington Hos.pital into this sinecure, with its substantial salary of £l2 a week, at the nod of a party that is pledged to reduce the public expenditure from its alleged wasteful and extravagant proportions. There are comparatively lew persons in the public employ who are paid so much for the discharge of highly important duties, requiring skilled training, after nearly half-a-oontury’s service. It was mentioned that Mr Montgomery, head of the Customs, through whose hands three-artd-a-half millions sterling passes annually, is paid only £650. Thero are many other responsible officials of almost equal standing in the same department who do not get as much as the physical culture gentleman with no service record at all. Mr Allport, of tho Marine Department, with forty years’ service, gets £625; Mr McVilly, practically Assistant-General Manager of Railways, with many years’ service, gets £700; and Mr Spragg, chief of “Hansard,” with another lengthy and highly creditable record, £625. It would be possible to cite scores of other examples to show the Government’s faulty sense of proportion when it ■places a higher value upon tho physicalculture capabilities of a gentleman who was engaged within tho last few days than it does upon the talent, experience, and long service of its magistrates and many other officials of education, training, and experience, who have spent the greater part of a lifetime in qualifying for a lesser salary. This, however, is what Mr Massey, with much mirth, would describe as another mare’s nest.