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Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 696, 5 July 1870, Page 2

It was recently mentioned in the letter of our Wellington correspondent that Mr Cracroft Wilson had tabled a motion in the House of Representatives to the effect that payment of honorarium to members should cease at the close of the present session. There is no likelihood of this being carried in the present constitution of the Parliament of New Zealand, and, indeed, it is open to question whether it would be advantageous to the Colony that the present arradgetnent should be interfered with. A Parliament that could dispense with honorarium could scarcely be deemed by any stretch of imagination to represent more than the ne phis ultra of society. As in all young communities, we have more capable than wealthy men ; but certainly not more capable men than are wanted to assist in conducting our public affairs, enough of those men who will come forward, or who can afford to come forward, to sacrifice their own individual interests for the sake of their fellow-colonists. Strangely enough the English mail which has just arrived, brings the news that in the House of Commons Mr P. A.Taylor moved for leave to introduce a Bill to restore the ancient constitutional practice of payment of members of Parliament. He supported his resolution upon the ground that if legislative services were worth having they were worth paying for, and quoted the opinion of Edmund Burke, that "honorable profit was the best security against corruption." Mr Gladstone did not think that for the sake of infusing a proportion of working men into Parliament they ought lightly to entain the proposal for such a radical change in the Constitution as that suggest by Mr Taylor. If the thing was desirable, it would assuredly have led to manifesta- .. ._-. »—*-»»»*- vi«j ~j>ikv~\jx— raro "WUU" stituencies. Mr Hibbert, Mr Cross, and Viscount Bury having opposed the motion, the House divided, and the resolution was thrown out by ,211 votes against 24— a majority which will prevent the introduction of such a measure for a long time to come. As the question of the payment of members of our legislative bodies is one which is now very much discussed in this Colony at every election, and one which is likely to be more so during the approaching general election for the General Assembly,. we make the following quotations regarding, , Mr Taylor's motion from the Scotsman of April 9, but in reading these remarks some allowance must be made for the difference between Home and Colonial circumstances, conditions of society, and political predispositions : — " Working men cannot, go to Pariiament without being maintained somehow ; and as they would not be able to maintain themselves as they had done before, either the State or their constituents, or some interested person, must find them the means of living. The question is, whether this would make them better representatives, or more likely to deal in a large-minded and honest manner with the business of legislation ? The matter is not one of abstract right, but of common sense and sound expediency. If the State paid a salary to members, the chances are that adventurers, ready to promise anything, would become the most prominent candidates, and would in too many cases secure support from the constituencies. Then as the salary would not be — could not be — very large, there would forthwith begin .that system of -"lobbying" and corruption which both Mr Gladstone and Lord Bury showed prevailed in the United States and other countries where payment of members exists." . Mr Taylor called his proposition a return to the ancient constitutional principle of paying members of Parliament ; but he lost sight of the fact, of which Mr Gladstone reminded him, that when members were paid they were paid by their constituents, and not by the State. There is nothing to prevent constituencies now paying their members a salary, except the feeling on the part of both members and constituencies that such a proceeding is not likely to conduce to the good of the country. If the system of paying members salaries prevailed, those who paid would insist upon having their wishes carried to the minutest particular, and thus the representative would become a mere delegate sent to vote on every occasion as those who found him in bread ordered him to vote. Ncr is this the worst, for not even all those who paid him would have the power of helping to direct his votes. His remuneration would probably come from a rate over all classes of the constituency, no matter what might be their politics. But as he would be returned by a majority on one side of politics, he would be required to do the bidding of that majority in every particular, to the great disgust of the minority. Thus would be introduced a state of things worse than existed in England under the Church-rate system. . . Such a condition of things would scarcely be likely to lead to better representation of the country, and it is not probable that

a member who felt at every turn the fear of offending those who employed him, would do the business of legislation as well as it is done now." This question is sure to be made a party cry of during the approaching general election, and it is quite as well that, before the time comes, both sides should be fairly and fully considered, in order that the constituencies may be able to give an unmistakeable answer when called upon. ...