Public spending
Sir: The calm news announced last Friday that the Government is being asked to recommend pay increases of up to 7 per cent for senior local government officers already earning £2,000 to £7,000 per annum illustrates to what an extent this country is being strangled by bureaucracy's costs. There was hardly a protest!
The same lack of response greeted the news last year that local government had just employed 159,000 new staff (1965)—as opposed to 26,000 new staff in the Civil Service. Similarly, in 1966; Pay increases both for civil servants and local government officials were passed and quietly announced.
Yet when railwaymen, dock workers, and other lower-paid, but productive, employees' claims are considered they are denied with arguments that the nation will suffer.
No wonder that economic devaluation is follow- ing our already devalued standards of fair play and principle.
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