R. W. MCVILLY.

91

I.—6a.

of £900 on the previous year. Of course, you understand, Mr. Chairman, that these figures only represent the payments to the men actually off, and do not include the cost of relieving them all. These are the payments we had to make for actual dead time. In 1910, the amount was £3,480. There is a drop there, although the stafi had increased. Now, for the period ending 19th August, 1911, the total amount of sick-pay was £97 Is. 7d. for the month, and for the corresponding period of the preceding year £248 17s. Id. There is £150 difference in the one four-weekly period. The drop for five months ending 19th August, 19.11, was £640 —nearly 50 per cent. Then, sir, added to that we have to take the relieving officers' expenses and salaries, and that puts on another £6,000 to the cost. It was costing the Department anything from £10,000 to £12,000 a year for sick-leave. Now, that sort of thing could not go on —that is evident; and the fact that something was necessary is I think evidenced by the position of sickleave to-day. I may say that had the officers of the Department who were doing the right thing— that is, the men who were not malingering —acted in their own interests they would have directed the attention of the Department to what was going on, and not only that, they would have dealt with the men who were malingeriug themselves. The institute as a corporate body should have dealt with its members. If a man does not want to report his fellow-officer to the Department in such a case, then he should take steps to see that the wrong action of that officer does not put him and the other men who are doing the right thing in a false position, and is not going to result in heavy inroads being made on the Department's expenditure. Now, when you come to the question of the time granted to Railway men as compared with Postal men, I submit you must take the concessions into consideration. When you come to deal with the leave you have to deal with the whole of the conditions under which the Postal staff and the Railway staff get their leave. The Railway staff do not only get leave, they get free passes for themselves, wives, and families over all lines during the period of their leave. Further than that, if a man wants to send his wife on extended holiday he can get a single-journey pass for her to come home any time up to two months. I put in a statement the other day showing that in one case I quoted, a journey of 426 miles, the saving to the Railway man in train fares alone by reason of getting an annual pass for himself, his wife, and four children was about £21 10s. That concession in itself means that the Railway man can in most cases pay the whole contingent holiday expense for his family out of the fare that the Postal man would have to pay to go the journey. 5. Do you suggest that a Postal man pays £21 in railway fares? —I do not know what the Postal man pays. 1 was not dealing with that. lam talking about the Railway men, and I say that for a journey of 426 miles for the purpose of annual leave, where a man takes his wife and four children, he gets, »o far as railway fares are concerned, in comparison with the Postal man, a concession of £21. It is a concession which I may say is very frequently asked for-—in fact, all the Civil servants want it, but our men do not appreciate it. The Civil servants would take it and appreciate it very highly, and if they got it they would be very happy. Now, it has been suggested that medical certificates would be a great safeguard in the case of sick-leave; but let us examine that point. Suppose you take a Stationmaster at Waimarino; he goes off sick, and does not know how long he is going to be off. If you say that man shall not have sick-leave till he gets ;: medical certificate, where is the nearest doctor? Taumarunui. And what is it going to cost that man to get a certificate? The production of a medical certificate by that man is impracticable. 6. Mr. Arnold.] That is not what was suggested? —I am pointing out why the Department does not insist on certificates. We know what would be done here in Wellington. If a man went off sick in Wellington a certificate would be required, and, in cases of doubt, from our own medical officer; but when you are making a regulation that is going to apply generally to the staff you have got to make a regulation that will work—something that is practicable. If you have got a number of men, as we have, situated in isolated places, and you impose on those men the necessity of producing a medical certificate every time they go off, such a regulation would cause those men most serious inconvenience, and be equivalent to asking them to do something that the circumstances of the locality they live in will not allow them to do, except at very heavy expense. You cannot deal with one section of the staff in one way and another section in another way. If you insist on the First Division producing certificates, the same thing has got to apply to the Second Division. Now, the Second Division surfacemen are even more isolated than Stationmasters, and we have to see that what we 'do is reasonable for those men —something that a man can comply with. It is no good making a regulation they cannot comply with, and that would be the position if you were to insist on them getting medical certificates. Now, our practice has been to get a certificate where we can, and always where we think the circumstances warrant it. We do not say that a man shall not go off duty sick if he has not got a certificate and is located where he cannot get one without great expense, but if lie stays off any time, then we make inquiries to see that there is no reasonable doubt as to the bona fides of the case. If there is, then no matter where the man lives he has got to produce a certificate. 1 know, myself, of many cases where instructions have been given for inquiries to be made, and for an officer to be sent to see a man when no doctor has attended him. Somebody must know something about him personally. That is a reasonable safeguard in the interests of the Department, and it is a reasonable thing from the man's point of view, having regard to his isolation. Then, there is another thing : a medical certificate is not in all cases as reliable as some of us think they are. The experience of the Department in connection with medical certificates is that they vary. We find that medical gentlemen, like all other members of the community, differ —that is, they do not all see the matter through the same pair of spectacles. The Department has quite a large number of cases during the course of a year in which Medico A says so-and-so and B says something else. Well, in cases of that kind, what would be tTie good of taking A's certificate on its face value? If it comes to be a question of serious illness you do not want a certificate, as the circumstances are generally known. We have a large number of cases during the course of a year, and some of the certificates would surprise anybody who saw them. Now, in the Commonwealth, when a man is off sick after he has been in the service