TWO INCOMES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3103, 3 September 1913, Page 36

TWO INCOMES.

QUESTION IN THE HOUSE

CIVIL SERVANT’S OUTSIDE REMUNERATION. (From Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, August 27. The question as to whether State employees should be permitted to receive remuneration from outside sources was raised jn the House to-day by Mr E. H. Clark. Addressing the Prime Minister, he asked whether lie was aware that the head of one of the departments of which he was the Minister in charge was drawing a salary of about £3OO a year for managing an outside estate while drawing a salary of £725 por year from the State. The reply given by the Prime Minister was; "The officer referred to states that he is not in receipt of a salary, but receives a small annua! payment for acting as advisory trustee in the estate of a deceased relative. The matter is being referred to the Public Service Commissioner.”

In commenting on this reply Mr Clark asked what, this particular gentleman had been doing ‘"down south” for five or six days in May last conducting a sale of land? He knew for a fact that the “sma'l payment” was about £3OO or £4OO per year, add many men would be prepared to accept that without any other salary. He thought that if the State paid a man £2 per day or so, then it was entitled to have the whole of his time. If such a man as this was allowed to derive income from outside sources, then it was wrong that railway employees, for instance, should not be allowed to sell milk because of com{teting with milk suppliers. “I shall keep tammering away,” declared Mr Clark, “until this man is nut, :n his place, or else every civil servant Ls allowed to have the opportunity of increasing his salaryin any way he likes.”