Ministerial See-Saw

Southland Times, Issue 11842, 16 September 1891, Page 3

Ministerial See-Saw

— ■*> TO THE EDITOR. SrR, — Any fresh acts of glaring inconsistency committed by the Government and their following have ceased to be matter of Burprise, and the colonists must by this time have become accustomed to such acts. Otherwise their very latest in raising salaries which were reduced by the same party last session {having out the exulting session) wheu in Opposition is matter enough for surprise, and the apology made by the Hons. Ballance and Seddon, when brought to book about it by Mr Richardson, showed the utter defencelessness of their conduct. Mr Ballance said that no salaries had been raised except in cases where careful inquiry had been made. But why was not this careful inquiry made last year before the howl for reducing these same salaries was set up by the same party who are now raising them again. Mr Fish gave the Premier a slap in the face in his reply when he said there was no justification for raising salaries this year which were reduced last year. Mr Seddon, in trying to help his chief, made matters worse. He said salaries had been raised because of the extra work to be performed by the officers on account of their reduced numbers. It was in Mr Seddon's department (according to his own showing) that the excess of numbers in proportion to the work to be done chiefly existed, by reason of the reduced expenditure on public works, and the reason he now gives for raising salaries forces one of two conclusions, namely, that those officers are now working extra hours — making overtime for this extra pay — or they are not making overtime and are getting the extra pay for an ordinary fday's work. If the former is the case then the Hon. Mr Seddon has committed a great wrong upon those officers he dismissed by now giving their work and living to others who had quite sufficient before. But if the latter is the case then he is co nmitting a greater wrong to the colony by practically affirming that men in government offices are entitled to extra pay if their time during working hours is fully occupied. Such lame excuses as these may satisfy the Government majority whose lion mouths have just been stopped by the L 240 per annum vote, but if all sense of justice between parties (if we must have government by party) is not abandoned these gentlemen who are playing this high-handed game of fast and loose will find that the electors are anything but satisfied with their conduct when the time for appealing unto Csesar comes round. — I am, &c., Watch Dog. Uth Sept.

_ i