ECONOMY PROPOSALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1931, Page 4

ECONOMY PROPOSALS.

The warmest friends of the public servants of New Zealand must regret the attitude .certain of them are taking towards the Government’s economy proposaU. Holding meetings of protest and passing resolutions that are almost veiled threats' is worse than useless. The difficulties the country is facing are economic, and even social services have to admit the impossibility of avoiding indefinitely the effect of economic conditions. It is, no doubt, hard upon civil servants, especially the lower paid members of the public service, to anticipate a reduction in salary. It is an unpleasantness by no mehns confined to them, but if they desire the taxpayers to believe their assertion that civil servants are being asked to shoulder more than their share of the economies necessary they have chosen the w-orst possible methods. Instead of semf-public meetings and resolutions that have a political tang, what is required to convince the Ministry and Parliament that the Public Service proposals ate unjust is a reasoned statement prepared upon facts and figures that are open to the fullest investigation. If this were provided civil servants could be assured of its consideration by Parliament, .and they should be well aware by now that taxpayers do not desire the service tb be unfairly treated. What the public is convinced of, how-cver, is that costs of administration ate too high, that it is imperative -they be reduced and if this carries with it the curtailment of certain services that also must be accepted as part of the cost of economic recovery. With, their certainty of employment iand other privileges civil servants must realise that their positions are viewed with some envy by those whose sustenance depends entirely Upon the professions or upon trade and commerce —-be they employers or wage-earners. There may be inaiiy sound arguments in favour of altering the incidence of the reduction in salary that the Civil Service must bear. They should be presented as such to Parliament and not dissipated at meetings or tinged with what seems very like petulance or wilful disregard of the problems the taxpayer must face.