The Dominion. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1910. THE PARISH PUMP POLITICIAN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1002, 17 December 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1910. THE PARISH PUMP POLITICIAN.

Since the end of the session several littlo incidents have been reported which require that some further attention must be given to the vogue- of the parochial politician in , this country. Everybody knows him, and most people, feel that something should be done to get rid of him—the member who. cares little or nothing, and knows less, about the science of law-making; for whom the. grand climacteric of the. session is the appearance of the Public Works Estimates; whose mind is concentrated upon the task of wheedling from the Minister as large a.share as possible of the public funds for expen-' dit'ure in his district; whoso strongest appeal to the electors is a list of tho votes he has secured for the district; the member, in short, upon whose mind,there has never dawned the idoa that there are higher duties than the duty of fawning upon tho Ministry in order to secure the favours which ha will plead at election time as the strongest of reasons why ho should bo sent back to fawn for further doles. The immediate occasion of our present. reference is a very interesting discussion that took place at a meeting of the Timaru Borough Council on Monday last. Tho Mayor of the Borough is Me. J. Craicie, M.P., a gentleman whose name is probably unfamiliar to Wellington people, for the sufficient reason that his contribution to the legislative work of the House has hardly gone beyond a steady and silent vote for the Government. But if Mn. Ceaigie has contrived to remain magnificently obscure so far as the rest of the country is concerned, he will doubtless think himself more than recompensed by the hungry attention with which he has been watched by Timaru. At the meeting under notico the Deputy-Mayor "referred in complimentary terms" to the work accomplished by Me. Ceaigie during his term of office, and quoted as. evidence of the admirable statesmanship of Me. Ceaigie his success in obtaining a grant for tho drainage of a lagoon, a second for renovating tho postoffice tower, .a third for the Old Men's Home, and a fourth for the Courthouse. "In many other ways also," Me. Craigik had advanced the welfare of tho district, but what these ways were was not mentioned, presumably because nothing could be quite so' important, in Timaru's representative as skill in' "battling for tho district." One councillor, liowever, astonished his fellows, before the congratulatory resolution was carried, by saying that "he did not know that they should return thanks to Me. Ceaigie for what was practically begging money for Government buildings. This," ho went on, "was altogether foreign to his idea of what men were elected to the Assembly for. Getting money for the Courthouse and raising the clock tower had nothing to do with the laws of the country." The revolutionary sentiments of this councillor probably filled Me. Ceaigie's supporters with no stronger emotion than pity for a mind so benighted. But they could not have dismissed the comments of tho Timaru Herald . without some little thought. In an extremely good article, tho Herald t hastened "to defend Mn. Ceaigie in advance from any suggestion that he might approve of the Deputy-Mayor's sentiments. ''If Me. Ceaigie had been present at tho meeting," said our contemporary, "he would, no doubt, havo explained to the well-meaning but politically unsophisticated members of the Council, that the obtaining of these grants was tho merest incident in the duties of a Parliamentarian, and, under a better system, which Me. Ceaigie no doubt would wish to see established, would form no portion of his duties at all." The Herald adds that it would not feel it was complimenting Me. Ceaigie if it described his legislative services' of. the session as the obtaining of 1 local grants. We should like to feel

that the Herald's good-natured guess at Mr. Craioie's opinion is correct, but there is plenty of evidence that the Herald is as far astray on this point as it is sound in its denunciation of the present degrading system under which the public works expenditure is allocated. For, from all quarters, there comes abundant testimony as to what the Ministerialist M.P. thinks about it—testimony in tho shape of his own statement or statements by those who are best qualified to know his opinion. jTestimony of the first kind is supplied in a telegram which was posted up the other day for general information at Upper Hutt. In this telegram Mil. Wilford, with what satisfaction it is not difficult to imagine, announced that "Government has granted me £300 for Mungaroa Bridge," etc. At Wanganui on Wednesday of this_ week tho AttorneyGeneral, replying' to tho inevitable delegation of local mendicancy, made a statement that is worth volumes upon the wretched conception of Parliamentary duty which is shared by the Ministry, the Ministerial members of Parliament, and a section of the public in evory district. He was speaking upon Courthouse accommodation, and ho said that "the member for Wanganui had, however, been very persistent and his persistency had, been rewarded, but, he .(the Minister) thought, too early." Most Government members would sooner have that said of them than that they, wore of some use in the shaping of legislation, and at the next election would use .Dr. Findlav's statement as a diploma, of statesmanship. The other day the Napier Telegraph had. a long eulogy of Mb. Vigor Bkown, M.P., whose rank as a national delegate is exactly the same as that of Mr. Craigie. The Telegraph easily filled a column with a . rapturous rccital of what Mr. Brown had done.for Napier as its Parliamentary representative. Mr. Brown, apparently, has done everything for Napier except prove that it aimed in 1908 at being.represented by anything bettor than a "battler." It is' objectionable—to tho _ great public, at any rate, for which we arc able to speak—that a local "battler," whose world is bounded by the limits of tho parish, and whose idea of statesmanship is limited to. struggling for local grants, should be able to vote upon., legislative proposals affecting tho nation. The cases we hayc cited are only those we recall on the spur of the moment; doubtless a careful, search of tho newspapers would bring other similar instructive littlo incidents to light. There is no need to repeat hero the obvious reasons why the era of the parochial politician must come to an end. There are more ways than one of ending it,, but there is only one easy and practicable way, namely, the establishment of a Public Works Board. The Government will never abandon the present system, which enables it .to degrade Parliament and debauch the public conscience in its .own interests. Its life depends upon the maintenance of a steady supply of Hogans and Craigies and Wilfords and Broavns. The establishment of such a Board would destroy the Government, since it would destroy , the conditions necessary to the continur ahce of parochial politics and petty dole-hunters in tho national Assembly. Then, but not till thin, will the nation begin' to enjoy the benefits of a clean and independent and thoroughly national Parliament.