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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 164, 14 July 1870, Page 2

The Wellington Advertiser thus comments upon the question of doing away with the payment of members, and those who bring the matter forward : — " We are loth to come to personal illustrations, but the pertinacious movers in this case compel us. Mr. Reynolds is an institution, and his honest plainness wins him the regard even pf those whom he often opposes and sometimes wearies. He has told us that Lw can aflord the money but cannot afford the time requisite for legislation. He conceives of legislation as a sort of butcher's canter through Bills and estimates, and values r a member by .the number of hours he sits listening to de-. bates-— gobd, bad, and indifferent. Would the Legislature he improved by replacing, every member who cannot afford money, but is willing to afford time, by a counter-: part of Mr. Reynolds, even if his good qualities could be matched ? Mr. Cracroft Wilson is another institution. He is" assiduous in the House and ih Committees, and his deep-drawn sighs show the chronic martyrdom he undergoes for his country. But even if he were not sui generis, it would perhaps be possible to do better for the Stale than by reduplicating him, ' his industry' and his virtue.. The truth is, tbat the gratuitous service movement is M'eally a movement for property qualification of members, very thinly . disguised. Wealth is getting to be daily less ..and less a presumption either of superioi. honesty or superior intelligence. There are numerous classes and interests iii the country which cannot command the disinterested services of wealth. ,It is expedient that eveiy class and interest should, as far as possible, be not only represented but even appear in person, as it were, in the Legislature. The spirit of modern legislation and political philosophyis in harmony with the . payment of all services; and to refuse a moderate payi"inenf .would, be in New Zealand to. introduce.'the. ugliest and worst form of -oligarchy — the. oligarchy of die .purse." \