PAYMENT OF MEMBERS BILL.

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 52, 18 October 1892, Page 2

PAYMENT OF MEMBERS BILL.

[TO THE EDITOB OF THE BTAB,] SiRi — I have read with some interest a letter published in your columns, signed "Fairplay," more especially as he informs us that he is a political turn -coat, which may only mean that he is not prejudiced, but may mean something very different. He begins by saying that he was in favour of the present Ministry, but because of their passing the Payment of Members Bill, he has crossed the floor to Mr Fish and the Opposition ; and I cannot help thinking that his reason for so doing smelt rather fishy. When he sneers at poor tailors and carpenters, and at legislation to benefit shop and factory workers, I am forced to think that he never possessed the heart of a Liberal, and by that I mean a heart that thinks and acts as— "rank were but the guinea stamp, the man's the gold for all that." I am further confirmed in this opinion when he states what be, if Governor of the Colony would do. I wish he may have the chance of being Governor ; but if he becomes a candidate for that office he must hide his hand a little better, for a number of Tories do not like an absolute tyrant. If the poor, or rich tailor neglects his business for the good, or presumed good, of his country, he is deserving of a fair reward ; and a local politician declared on a Feilding platform that £150 was scarcely enough to meet session expenses. The obvious object in increasing members' payment is to draw but the best men from workers, to assist in making just and sensible laws ; and I ask, does ' " Fairplay " as an intelligent man, thirsting for his fellows' good, because of this seeming greed, go over to a party who are greed itself, and whose motto in these enlightened days is not even stand still, but go backwards? I thiuk that he does not; and believe he will have no followers. In order to gain any reform we should hang to the party who are avowedly Progressivists, not to Conseryitives. Place the latter in power, and- they will at once abolish the labour bureau, cooperative contracts, and so disorganise the labour market, that good men can be got to work for 5s per day. They would also give property a vote, and supposing au equal number of landed and landless people in the colony, the latter would be completely disfranchised. They would sell land in large areas, and probably to the highest bidder; would abolish the progressive and Land Tax, and reimpose a Prooerty Tax; and when all this is done, is a working man's prospects in New Zealand bright ? Give fifteen years of unchecked rule to Tories, and Feilding will be demimshed in size to a railway station, post office, one pub, and blacksmith's shop, even the Star office will be no more. For Tory rule would do here what it has done elsewhere—depopulate the country and over-crowd the towns. We see samples of the fruit of Tory legislation in the Wairarapa and Napier, for there was no Liberal Government m the good old days. Not many tailors 1 carpenters, shop assistants, doctors, lawyers, parsons, or painters infest the broad acres there for many miles. Rich Tories could well afford to do parliameutary service gratis ; indeed gratis is not the right word ; it would benefit them largely. And it may yet become part of their policy to insist on no payment to members. They would this debar labour members from entering Parliament, and letting labour drift, would soon find it beginning at their doors. An old writer says : ' There is an art practised by all political parties of attaching to a new faction approbrious or contemptible nicknames." I notice that your correspondent is guilty of this trick when speaking of the so-called Liberal members. The present Opposition have, I think, overdone this art, so that opprobrious or contemptible names have acquired a new and favourable meaniug. < So-called Liberal,' now means ' helper of the poor,' the much worn word ' faddist ' means • reformer,' ' anarchist,' and ' socialist,' 1 lover of fairplay.' This being so 1 subscribe myself Faddist and Anarchist.