The deputation found the Premier at his home in company with Sir John Hall, who, all through the strife of those years, remained behind the leaders of the Conservative Party and gave them his advice on all important questions.
The Premier was not at all pliable. He could not see that further retrenchment was necessary, desirable, or possible, and the most he gave the deputation was cold comfort in the shape of a promise that any specific reductions they proposed would be carefully considered. They held another conference, and sent another deputation to the Premier, who then consulted his colleagues. The result was a compact. The extreme economists voted with the Conservatives, the no-confidence motion was lost by 11 votes, and the Continuous Ministry was safe again.
The estimates were the centre of the next attack. Mr. Seddon took that opportunity to insist that if Parliament continued to reduce its servants’ salaries, the reductions ought to be made in the higher ones. A rumour that the wages of railway servants would be largely reduced brought him to his feet with questions and protests of a very vigorous nature. He found that Ministers were ready enough to defend the salaries of the heads of departments, but used the pruning-knife in a cruelly regardless manner on the lower salaries. The result was that the weight of the retrenchment measures fell upon the lower salaries, while salaries of £600 and even £1,000 a year were left untouched. A Minister of the Crown received only £800 a year, and Mr. Seddon saw no reason why high officials should be paid out of proportion to both their superior and inferior officers. He therefore determined not to give his vote for the increase of any salary over £200 a year.
He succeeded in the face of the Government’s opposition in reducing the vote for the Audit Office by £950. The Audit Office had never been subject to the humiliation of a reduction before, and the action of the House, led by Mr. Seddon, threw the whole of the Civil Service into a state of terror, which lasted all the time the estimates were under discussion.
The harassed Civil Servants at last formed a union to protect their interests. They complained of Parliament, Ministers,
