NOTES ON THE ELECTIONS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 338, 27 October 1908, Page 6

NOTES ON THE ELECTIONS.

During last session there were some evidences of a growing feeling amongst' tho Ministerialist party that tho Govern: ment should furthor increase the salaries of members of Parliament. At Manakau last week, Mr. Field, M.P., openly advocated a further raid upon the public purse. He did not think that £300 per year waß sufficient recompense for members, and "should a proposal be brought forward, to increase the honorarium to £»J0 he would support it." Tho public may well feel a little concern on the subject. The deterioration of the character of the House has complemented the rise in the salaries of members exactly as was anticipated, and it is safe to assume that tnc public does not desire to give the professional politician any further encouragement. The "honorarium" can no longer be regarded as anything but a salary. Originally intended as a reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses, it has already grown to a figure that makes it attractive on its own account to a certain type of man. To raise it still further will merely stimulate the efforts of the professional politician. The Second Ballot Act contains a clause providing for the payment, up to £50, of tho expenses incurred by a candidate who has occasion- to submit himself to a second ballot. That is a first step towards spending the public's money; on the expenses incurred by candidates, and it is sufficiently indicative of the Government's frame of mind to inspire the public with a good deal of concern. The public, we, believe, is opposed to any further increase in the payment of members, and it will be well advised to vote against every candidate who leans towards another raid on the Treasury.

Although Me. C. M. Gray does not appear to have aroused any enthusiastic admiration in the breasts of his constituents, he 'at any rate supplied them with some curious and interesting information. He not only told a moving story of his loneliness in the splendid isolation of his "independence"—a loneliness that drove him into the shelter of the Ministerial fold, but he.threw some light upon the private life of a Government member. He remarked that a member's time was largely taken up with correspondence. "The main theme of correspondence was 'billets, billets, billets.' He believed that thero were 80,000 applications for Government billets sent into the hands of members every year." Nobody will doubt that these amazing figures may be fairly correct, nor will anybody who can understand facts miss the significance of this amazing clamour for enrolment in the great army of State employees. Billets cannot be found for 80,000 new officcsoekors. every year, but billets must be found for many of them, and the Government is certainly doing its best to find, or rather to make, room for the friends of their supporters. As a rcsult'of several years of this vigorous nepotism, the State employees have increased beyond all reason. It is largely to this policy of nepotic concessions that we owe the enormous increase in the cost of government. It is in order to maintain the enormous and increasing army of State employees that the Government refuses to temper the burden of taxation. We have dealt boforo with tho gravn peril that lies in the i»uiWication of State omploycea,

Not.only is it socially ruinous to maintain a great body of unproductive drones on superfluous office stools, since it charges the productive worker with the cost of keeping alive men who should be keeping themselves alive—not only is it thus socially ruinous, but it is politically perilous for its creation of a' privileged body which can exercise political force in securing further monetary advantages at the expense of the general public. There would be no such rush for State employment if the Government administered the affairs of the country properly. The 80,000 applicants for Government "billets" supply all the criticism necessary upon the nepotism of tho "Liberal" administration and the decay of individual self-reliance under the Socialistic regime.

To those whose business it is to read tho election speeches now being delivered everywhere in the country it is a pleasant thing to come across a speech which in tone and in subject matter is the very reverse of the dreadful compound of platitudes, ignorance, commonplaces, and inaccuracies which represents the average Ministerial candidate's speech. One of these excellent speeches was delivered by Me. Edward Newman, a candidate for the Manawatu scat, at Marton on Friday last. Me. Newman, who gave the Liberal Administration generous praise for the good work which stands to its credit, is heartily opposed to the present Government, and he stated his objections to it with unusual freshness and lucidity. What better or truer criticism of the Government's financial methods could there bo than the statement that if Me. Ballance, the champion of self-reliant finance, were alive, he would belong to the Opposition party ?. Me. Newman's clear advocacy of the case for the farmer we reprint in another column, and it is only necessary here to commend it to the notice of those country readers whose (representatives in the House during tho past Parliament were servile supporters.of the anti-farmer Government. Discussing the growth of tho public debt, Mr. Newman freely admitted that some of the borrowing has been for "reproductive" works, "but," lie pointed out—and this is a point that deserves careful attention—"tho productiveness of many of those works depended greatly on the continuance of prosperity." Such, for example, as the railways and the land for settlements areas. The' refusal of the Government to reduce taxation, tho wasting of vast sums on ornamental expenditure and the accompanying neglect of tho roadless back-blocks, tho breeding of an army of State dependents, tho abuses of the nominative Upper House—these and other leading questions of the day were dealt with in a speech perfect in tone and extraordinarily clear in expression. It is a fortunate circumstanco that even in the face of such a serious discouragement as the' demoralisation of the public conscience there are still new candidates of the best type willing to run for Parliament.