THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18625, 5 August 1922, Page 6

THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Two of the organs of the public service have entered into a competition in vituperation of the Government upon the enormity of its conduct in making a second “cut” of the bonuses that were granted to public servants when the cost of living was rising. The JLatipo, the official organ of the Post, and Telegraph Officers’ Association, is the more incoherent. The Public Service Journal, the official organ of the Public Service Association, is the more emphatic. The Public Service Journal does not involve itself in the way in which the Katipo does in wildness of assertion and in confusion of logic. But there is a refreshing directness and , vigour about the terms of its indictment. ,f We believe,” it says, “that the Qpverament has played traitor to the Public Service and its agreements, and though, by a clumsy twist of the cost-of-living figures, it may have clouded the issues so far as the public is concerned, cannot hide from tho Public Service the spuriousness of its statements in support of what, from our standpoint, is / nothing more than a filch.” We beg to suggest to the : Public Service Journal that the public appreciates the facts quite welL The public is aware that, when the “agreement,” to which the Government is alleged to have “played traitor,” was entered into, it was on the' basis that the. rise or fall in the bonus should be related to the movement in food' prices. When?* however, the policy of retrenchment was forced upon the Government the index figures of the food prices Were falling, and thereupon the Publio Service Association sought to have the reductions in the bonus based upon the movements of the cost of living upon all groups. It was by the Public Service Association that the “clumsy twist of the cost-of-living figures” was made. It seized upon the Arbitration . Court’s pronouncement in i. making a general order with reference ,to the redaction of workmen’s bonuses in order to fortify its clalm -that the cost of living in all groups should regulate the treatment of the bonuses to , members of the Public -Service. In doing so, however, it repudiated its own agreement. The Katipo draws a doleful picture of the evil economic results that are to flow from the withdrawal of . another instalment of - the bonus. “What possibll benefit,’*? it tearfully asks/ “can it bo to the trader to have some hundreds of thousands' withdrawn from circulation?” What, indeed, except that the trader may reflect that, if this grave injury was not to be inflicted upon _ him, he and > the other . members'of his class would in all probability be called upon to-, provide in additional taxation a substantial proportion of the hundreds of thousands of pounds expended, in maintaining an _ over-manned pnblic service 1 But, we are solemnly wamei| a day of reckoning will' cornel’ It is not necessary for one to be gifted with a second sight to learn when this will ho. "If the service, remembering its grievances, will only seek out men who will give their practical . and substantial support in having them righted, that day,” says toe Katipo, “is not far distant.*? As i if to emphasise this statement,, the publication contains, in the same issue, an ■ announcement by the Secretary of the Post and Telegraph Officers’, AsBociation t that,, as it is “abundantly clear that someone in Parliament who has specialised on our affairs could be a tower of strength to the service,” he has accepted nomination for the Labour selection ballot for Wellington North.