The Feilding Star. Oroua & KiwiTEA Counties Gazette. Published Daily. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1895. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 54, 31 August 1895, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Oroua & KiwiTEA Counties Gazette. Published Daily. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1895. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

When the July number of the Nineteenth Century appeared the London agents of the Press Associai tion wired a precis of an article from pen of .Major General Tulloeh, entitled " An Object Lesson in Payment of Members." We have now the full text before ua. Some of the statements and opinions are to the point and shrewd, while others are tainted . with a certain amount of prejudice. 1 It goes without saying that the writer objects to tbe system,, especially as he thinks that out of it has generated r the professional politician who must vote as he is ordered, or lose his seat and salary, and he quotes Uueensland as an ' : awful example." Further on he says "in every profession but politics, a man has to show that ho ' has been educated aud trained before <l he is allowed to make a living out of | his fellow creatures ; but for the most important position of all— that of a legislator— -loquacity is apparently the first, and ia some instances the only

requirement necessary. As to the so called labor members occasionally one of these shows himself to be a man of natural ability, and although his education may have b9en deficient, he in course of time imbibes a certain amount of useful information, and eventually sees the folly of the wild theories professed when he first took to politics ; but this experience is only acquired at the expense of the unfortunate colony to which the individual belongs. The fact must not be overlooked these naturally able men are the exception. On the other hand some labor members, whose facility of expression shows that they possess a certain amount of ability, are content to remain talkers and nothing else. In matters of finance they are always a hindrance. That the social and educational s:atus of members of Parliament in Australia has steadily deteriorated since the business and professional man has had to give place to the needy professional politician, and that the difficuly of finding men with statesmanlike ability especially for matters connected with finance has very greatly increased, is undeniable. The writer adopts the opinion that " although theoretically considered nothing could possibly be more in accordance with reason and justice than that payment of members should produce a number of hard working, conscientious representatives some of them taken from, and all acquainted with, tho classes which usually find a difficulty in making known their wants and wishes, owing to the inability of those members to live without continuous manual lebor, the result in reality was quite the reverse ; it begat a race of trading politicians, who gained and held their seats on condition of pandering to the popular whim of the hour, and whoso interest it was to stimulate the pubic excitement to the utmost by keeping up a perpetual succession of agitations for so called reforms, all appealing to the cupidity of the masses and differing from each other solely in their dpgree of extravagance and folly." We are not surprised that the article of the Major General raised a " hornets nest about his earn." We admire him in that he possesses the courage of his opinions, but wo accept them with a grain oorl r sale