THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 1922. ECONOMY AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18454, 16 January 1922, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 1922. ECONOMY AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

While the public accounts convey very little indioatidn of the practice of serviceable economy by the Government, complaints which are being made in Parn liamqnt (relative to .cases of individual hardship remind us that at least something has been, and is being, done to curtail the * swollen expenditure in certain quarters. That retrenchment can bo effected without cahaing individual hardship may ' be frankly- admitted to be impossible!. Every public official whose Services- are dispensed with is presented with a grievance!- Human nature being what it-is, h© will be firmly convinced that , some other ‘ official should 'be discharged before he himself is. Probably he regards himself as more efficient than that other official. In this case it will be alleged that unfair discrimination is in the application of a policy; of retrenchment. Perhaps he is aggrieved because he has been a member oi the public service so long encourage in him the expectation that when his retirement should take place the blow would be softened by the annual payment to him of- a fairly comfortable superannuation allowance. If the public servants were themselves to bo accepted as the best judges of how retrenchment in the Government offices should be effected, / the taxpayers might resign themselves to the perpetuation of a condition of things under which the country would pay far more than it could possibly afford foj the, maintenance of* the/State depdrtments under which there would be no possible fihance of relief from a burden of taxation that/has in some respects become positively oppressive. Neither the Government nor the Public Service Commissioners can have any pleasure iji dispensing with the services - of. officials. Nor will the community as a whole, be unsympathetic rto the individual members of the public i service, wBo are, and will be, the victims of an inexorable need for retrenchment.. It cannot (fail to recognise the hardship that is imposed upon through the loss by them of their employment. It would be fully prepared, moreover, to mitigate that hardship wherever this was possible. But, as we have said, the occurrence of present hardship is inseparable frop the practice of retrenchment. It is so in businesses that are conducted by public companies,'* 4 by 'private firms,* and by individual employers-as well as in the Government service. But it is only when retrenchment is effected by the Government that a personal, individual hardship is represented in the light, of, a public wrong, and that, as was done in the House of Representatives the other night, it is alleged to involve a breach of a contract. However harshly "the practice of retrenchment may operate in special cases, if is necessary to protest against the doctrine that, because a man has served for a certain number of years in a Government department, there is any contract, expressed or implied, on the part of the Government .to retain him in its- service, for better or .for worse, for as many, additional years as will 4 enable him to retire on superannuation. This is an entirely false view. There is no contract, nor was there ever any suggestion of a, contract, between the Government and the. public officials that their engagement was of such a\ character as entitled them, whatever the financial circumstances of the

country might- be, to remain in, the service for so long as would: enable them to qualify for the receipt of superannuation allowances upon i, their retirement. It would be absolutely fatal to the -■ efficient performance of the duties of the public service if there were any such contract. In reality, it is not in the interests of the public service itself that any such fantastic claim as thip should be put forward. If he has not, qualified for the receipt, of a- superannuation allowance, > the public official, v wbqn he retires, withdraws from the fund the contributions which he ■ has paid into it under a system of enforced saving that has been imposed upon him. The man who loses his billet in a private concern through stress of financial circumstances has, as a general rule, no such “stocking” as this. 'He has not been paying into any superannuatipn fund for 'his own But he has, as a taxpayer, actually been paying into a fund for the benefit of the public servants/ The contributions which the taxpayers make to the superannuation'funds that have been established in the interests of the public servants are of a very substantial amount. They have aggregated over £500,000 in the past four years. •They would have to bo more substantial still Jf the claim were admitted that a public servant should re-’ ceivo a: superannuation allowance as of rights if the exigencies of ike finance of the State necessitated ids retirement he had completed' the term of service which would make him eligible for superannuation. The circumstances of the general body of taxpayers are not undeserving of consideration at a time when “ad misericordiam” appeals are being made in Parliament jon behalf qf public servants whose misfortune it is that their engagements are being terminated under a policy of retrenchment “which is imperatively necessary whatever the personal hardships axe that may be inflicted by reason of it.