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Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2116, 15 February 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

-A steam locomotive of tlm rem.sylva ilia railroad ntl > llom , n ,il c „t. a speed o - l;,' ,j ! miles per hour, winch is 1 enough.”

A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. IIIS PRIVILEGES A Nil) 11JS DISABILITIES. THE FINANCIAL ASPECT. (''Lyttelton Times.”) There is an impression abroad that liieinboi-.s of the House of Bnpiesen-t-ativiss are in clover with then- .ftiOO a year. i.Vtaiiy people feel that, with a handsome income like that, they should become la.t, prosperous, and even wealthy, and tint they should throw their money around with all the grave and princely nonchalance of a iivutti-inillionaire. ft is this impression," .probably, which ae,-oiint.> for the large number of demand-.; niia.de upon members’ gen; m-eiy. 'Rliree hundred a year seems -i- big sum when it .is > Jiill quickly and all at once, and it is thought that a guinea or two will make only a very .-iin-ll hole in it. These stray I'liilicas, however, soon idle up together. \\ lu n they are placed beside the l eap of golden coins that represent the total honorarium. it is .round that they uctinl.v do hear some kind of eounurison, and that they are far roo many to be ignored. -Members find that deductions are made-from their honorariums n other directions also. Judging i v the nature of information collected bv a reporter in Christchurch, the in ne.v the members can set aside as the r.-’t remuneration for .their labor is small, and, in there .piping times of a failwage for a fair day’s work, unite inadequate. No complaints are made. An far as can be .aseerlnined, the members do their work willingly and '-heetI'ully, hut some of them at least led that those -who believe they are overpaid should have a better knowledge of the position. It is aligned that the member ol Parliament is paid £-500 lor only a few months’ work, and thiit when Lie session is over he is free to attend to his own affairs. The session genera 111 v occupies four months land a half, and sometimes five months. lihat is about half the year. The stress of. work during tlu> session is very hoavv. and -attention to private matters is almost impossible then. I'hc member receives between seventy .aan a hundred -letters a week. A I hat e to he -answered, aiul imany ol them call for inquiries, wlnm take up much time. Some members have to enir-pre the services of shorthand writers and itvni'ists to help -them u ltli work is done on the He does not get a penny toi that, nun he chdmnen of the committees are not paid, although their duties tie troublesome, heavy and The cost of living in M dUngton during the session is high- ft the member does not take lus taindj to the capital, he must keep up two homes; if he does take lus family, hidi prices have to be paid tor accommodation. In either case ho finds that his honorarium oi £2o a month is barely sufficient to cover the expenses of the session. When the session is over, lie hastens hack to-his home, but lie funis that there is an end to neither lus work nor his expenses. He is deluged with letters .many of which demand personal attention to public or private subjects brought under his not icq, iTe is hardly ever tree, the time that lie has to himself is not much more than most private citizens give up to recreation. Years ago, a member's duty ended with the session; but now lie takes an interest in the administration of many departments, and in other ways lie is expected to do more ; than was asked of him in former days. . The general election is a specially busy and specially expensive time for him. If he is a country member, he may have to address nearly fifty meetings. He has to pay for halls, advertising, conveyances, and so on. Some members, especially in tbe North Island, spend weeks in the saddle, travelling front place to place. Besides these expenses, there arcmanv of a purely personal nature, which cannot bo avoided, but which very soon make a fairly iornudablo item. Bv the time they have all been paid the member finds that the non s share of both his honorarium and his time has been taken by the callous public, which sometimes turns round and says that he is making a •mod thing out of lus position. It will occur to many people that .the member is not so badly oft aitei all, as he enjoys privileges which.mo not open to private persons. When this is looked into, however, piacticallv the only privilege ot 'any value is his free railway pass. It carries him all over the Government s railways and also on the Goteinment’s steamers on Lake W akatipu, lmt no further. It does not extend to his wife or to any members ot lus family. His wife is given a free pass uvailaffio only for one week before the session begins and one week attei ends. This year the wife S pass jhns been available for a tew months .while Parliament is not sitting. T . treated as well as a member o the first division of the railway ■ who is given a tree pass loi lumsclt, his wife, and his children tor one month in the year. The member is paid a travelli g allowance of 10s a day for each day while travelling to Wellington to attend the session, and while travelling from Wellington when the session has ended. If he travels to and from Wellington during the session, tho steamship companies give lnm a return ticket at single fare, but the country pays him no other travelling allowance whatever. In tho face ot this, he is expected to make lumsclt familiar with tho dominion from end to end, .inspecting public works and watching tho progress oi now railway lines. In this way he is given less consideration than a clerk of the I üblie Works Department, who receives in travelling .allowances 12s a day. In dealing with his mass of correspondence he must pay for nearly all the postage. The only letters he can post free are those directed to a Minister, and while Parliament is sitting he may frank letters dealing with his Parliamentary duties, lie must send away many telegrams durum the year, hut none goes tree unloS it is in reply to a communication from -a Minister, who must write on the original message, 'Reply to memo,”' In it not the invariable practice of Ministers to do that, and the member has often to pay for telegrams that are replies to Ministers communications on public aiians. Tho member innv send 36 words tor 6d and eve.rv extra four words for Id’ but that is tlm only privilege he is nqvcn in respect to the telegraph lines It is seldom that ho can confine his message to 36 words. Ho finds that lie must make frequent use of the lines, especially when Ministers are away from Wellington, and these expenses very soon amount to A lnrge sum. A short time ago, tor instance, a Canterbury member sent ,i telegram to the Premier, who was away "front Wellington, and it cost him* over 3s. It is thought that tho member can exercise many privileges at Bellamys while Parliament is sitting. As a matte rof fact, ho gets hardly anything there he does not pay tor. Ho cannot get a glass of hot water and lemon .or a glass of warm milk, with „ biscuit, for less than 6d. Alter 12 39 or I a.m. a cold joint is placed on the side-table and he can help himself, but at all other tunes ho must pay at least 6d for everything lie gets at Bellamy’s. \ s staled before, members do not complain, and they do not ask for more privileges or for a higher honorarium; but some of them feel that there is a wrong' impression m tho public’s mind in regard to tho good things that come in the way ot a member of Parliament.

A SHRINKING CITY. DISMAL DAYS ON THE RAND. (.Correspondent "Daily Mail”) JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 23. Hav?‘ von ever seen a town shrinking:' Have you ever seen it contracting month by month, closing in, as it were, upon lie centre, sutfering from a kind of economic, creeping paralysis 1 J I hope not. 1 have. 1 mil watching it now. It is a melancholy and distressing process. It gets on your nerves. 'I he hopelessness, the discontent, ami tiie unrest are in the very atmosphere. Half the ceople you meet are contemplating going away. The other hall are lamenting because they cannot get away. Yon begin to measure time l>.v he journeyiugs ol your Irieiuls to other lauds.

1 do not suppose anybody not on the spot (-An quite realise what a terrible business this slow decay really is Outwardly Johannesburg is as big as it' was two or three years ago—indeed, it is logger, lor structures then begun have been completed. The sy- reapers and the hotels, the banks and tli(> mining offices, the theatres and the blocks ol flats remain. But the town begins to look empty with an emptiness which London in August never knows. The people arc going. Tho business is going. Those wh -. remain are shrinking financially ■ —and in other -mi,vs. For a city to bo scourged by disease or otherthrown by some upheaval of Nature is bad. Yi 1 l doubt whether it is worse than the tort uni of slow eoononde sta rvat ion. to the one case there is, after the first shock, the reaction of liope. But when you have hoped in vain lor five weary years 1 BUILT TO LAST. Johannesburg is shrinking. But it is not- tlm contraction of the miningcamp town shrivelling up suddenly as the gold upon which it was founded woi'ivs out. For Johannesburg is not a. Dawson City or a Knlgoorlio. It was built to last. Some optimist of bygone days—only five or six years ago, yet how far off it seems!— talked of a second New York or London on the Witwatersrniul. To the casual visitor Johannesburg ma.v seem fairly prosperous even now. To tlio resident it is becoming a nightmare. It crumbles «vt a toucili. There are big firms which look stable enough. Touch them with a demand ol £IOO in cash and they would crumble into the Bankruptcy Court. Everywhere it is the same story. Branch banks and branch stores in the suburbs aro closing. The town is shrinking; closing in upon its head offices. I think I related some time ago how three years back I met- a mail who made a practice oi congratulating me upon the exceedingly opportune moment 1 had selected for arriving in the Golden City. He insisted that I lmd timed my arrival with Heaven-sent prescience. ; 'Yoti are lucky,” he would say;

"you have missed the three years of waiting. MY, who came first, have lived through the slack times. The good days are at hand. The boom is coming how.” He came to me the other day and said farewell before sailing for Melbourne. ‘T can’t stand it any longer,” be said. “Two years ago I was able to go a mile or more out from the centre of the town to do business; now it is no use going more than a few hundred yards. Outside a little circle there is nothing-—nobody goes there. The town lias contracted : it has closed in ” THE DESERTED STOCK EXCHANGE. And ho. was quite right. M’heii ypu think of it, it is extraordinary how small a. circle would enclose the business activity of Johannesburg. Letanyone who knew the busy scene “between the chains” in the old days go and stand outside the magnificent new Stock Exchange, lie would feel lonely.

.Johannesburg lias shrunk. J’erhaps the few millionaires who have not got civil judgments out against them do not notice it. The man who moves about the town cannot escape it. Everywhere shrinking—-shrinking in the aduienees at the theatres (even in the number of theatres open), .shrinking in the tea-rooms, in the police, in the Civil Service, in the miming bouses, in the public revenue, on the railways, on the mines, in the newspaper advertisements, in the very social life of tho people. Everywhere shrinking. Men tall v there is shrinking. The a part li.v of the average Johannes-burgei; concerning politics or the future oi the country, or oven municipal affairs, is extraordinary.. His outlook has become circumscribed. It is bounded by his grocer’s bill and his rent. * Morally there is shrinking. There have been more swindling companies and syndicates floated in the last three years than in any previous lustrum. Tho one object in life of many peoplo is to avoid paying then bills in order to cling to every penny they can get hold ot. They tear bein(r stranded, without work, a shrinking .town. Tlhey must reserve somethin<r with which to get away. A HOPELESS POSITION.

And really (the case is so hopeless. There is no prospect of an immediate revival. M'liat caused the collapse, matters little, l'eihaps it was the Liberal Government .in England. Perhaps it was Chinese labor—or the lack ot Chinese labor. Perhaps it was swindling flotations; perhaps it was simply the fact that we tniilt for a population that a country which lives upon imported goods could never support. - Whatever was the cause, the eltect is clear enough. There arc men nero to-day wliose salaries have been cut down by 50 per cent. llieic are others who have no salaries at all and whoso children live on bread and tea bought with borrowed money. They may he outwardly pros-perous-looking tike tlie town. 1 met two men tlie other day, well dressed, apparently well-to-do. “It’s tbe clothes that last, one of them confieded to me. “Units all. If wc get one meal m two days wo consider ourselves lucky. Yesterday we dined— perhaps we shall be able to again to-morrow. To-day we don’t.” ~ It is the shrinking process, borne financial geniuses manage to live lai.it c.ouiiortable on nothing how they* do it nobody knows. 't he majority of the retrenched who had not enough money to get out i the subcontinent altogether arc. slowly starving. Their position is hopeless.

NOT USED TO POVERTY. Perhaps you think the state ol the Golden' City cannot be so bad as this—that the story is exaggerated. There is poverty in other lands; distress in other towns. They do not make these Mutations. But the Rami has not been used to poverty like this, it’s bad times have never lasted so long ov sunk so deep. And the trouble is the people cannot get uwav- It is useless to go to Kimberley or .Durban, or Cape Town, or ort Elizabeth. They are just as oadly otf. They, too, are shrinking. The out-of-work clerk, or accountant,might as well starve on the Rand as at the coast. To leave the country altogether is too expensive. So lie stays, a misery to liimself, and a burden to his friends, a living example of the shrinking of .Johannesburg. The European shareholder need not feel nervous. The poverty ot the Rand will not hurt him. Rather will it brim' him bigger dividends. It will force down wages and working costs, and I bus send up profits. His dividends will not shrink •whatever is the fate of the centre Jrom which the gold is produced. But the onlytiling for the out-ot -works to do is to go away —perhaps-the Government will expatriate them. 'There will be no boom on the Hand; no sudden revival. Sternly, patient work throughout the country will gradually restore prosperity,’ But the shrinking j process will continue for some time. J Do not come to Johannesburg for | at least five years—and then stay i away if you can. In five years it | may have settled down as a small but ! prosperous commercial centre—the

commercial capital of a small colony. But to-day .it is shrinking. By the'way, the gold output is still rather more .than £25,000,000 a year. But if it were twice that amount it would not help us much. It. nearly all flows out of the country, either ns dividends or ill payment for imported goods.