The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, SEPIEMBEtt 4, 1874

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 300, 4 September 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, SEPIEMBEtt 4, 1874

■Mil. Lock-ie has every reason to be Batbfied with the revolt of his meeting on Wednesday; He was warmly received, and, what moat have heen atUlaiore gratifying to -him, be was goodly cheeked at the close of his address.' Hia principal theme was, of ieont-sey the Provincial question, and we confess that we were riot at all sorry to find, by the' applause which greeted his advocacy of tbe abolition of the Provincialsystem alwgetbar/that the people (*/f 'the town' of Nelson at least are fully prepared to accept such a change ta be indicated. There was one portion o( ma speech', however," that 'we. are quite unable to agree with, although we could not but admire the excellent " ; tact disnjwed^io the manner in whicb ; he handled ft. We refer to tbe questioh r o*e : i«yn.ent of members. Feel-

;Jlp&- c&ofifoTot ;tbat tie. popularity of the. .act ioii he. 1 bad .taken in the matter would j be, to say. the least of it,. >doubtfal, handing that the meeting % aB^|^ completely with him orrlhe Mother subjeoig to whjch-h£ bad referred/ made a bold rush and look the hall by. the horns, and, before his audience hjdtime to recover from their surprise- at the suddenness of the manoeuvre, he was off again upon some other, topic". Fortunately, however, we have now before us in print the reasons he gave for supporting what he himself said he knew would be an unpopular measure. We are told that it was thought advisable to increase the payment to members, because, if that were not done, the government of the country must of necessity fall into the hands of the .wealthy alone. Now, if this be true, we. are quite prepared to allow that some such step was required. Legislation for the -people by - one particular class alone would be most objectionable) whether that class was 1 the very rich or the very poor. But it is one thing to make an assertion ; it is quite another to prove it, and if Mr Luckie could have adduced any proof of the correct"tTeas of what he said, he should have done* co, but in the absence of it we are left io inquire into the matter for ourselves. Now, we would ask the people of the Province of Nelson to run over the present list of their representatives, and. to look back and call to mind the Dames of those whom' they have on previous occasions sent to the Parliament of the colony, and we would then /invite them to judge for ■ themselves whetkea their members have at aoy one time bV?n cobfined to individuals of the wealihy\:la6& It would be invidious to- mention Dames, nor is it at all necessary that^we should do so,. but every on^ in the province must be aware that a large proportion of our representatives at the present moment are many degrees removed from those realms of. wealth from which Mr Luckie. has conceived so sudden a dread lest our members of Parliament should be selected. / If then, up to this time, the honorarium has proved sufficient to prevent anything like < an endue : preponderance of rich men in the Assembly so far as Nelson is concerned, it is , ODly fair to presume that it has prov duced a. similar effect in other parts of the colony, and, if so, what possible need could there be for adding fifty per cent, to the amount hitherto paid to members, for, be it remembered that no other reason was urged for granting the increase. The amount originally thought sufficient was £1 per day, but it was, two sessions since, agreed to fix the amouot at £105 for the session with deductions for absence, and no one was found to complain of such an arrangement, although it certainly presented this strange anomaly that supposing the sessioa to consist of seventy sitting days, a member /who was absent every such day might still , claim £35 on account of honorarium, £1 per day being deducted for non attendance. That, however, was bat a matter of detail, and the contingency was one that was not likely to occur. Now, however, we find that the members of the Assembly have voted themselves something more than a mere honorarium, and have, in fact, secured a very handsome payment for their services, as we shall proceed to . show. The late session occupied just eight weeks, and for attending to their legislative duties during "that period the representatives of the people have each received £157 10a, or very nearly £20 a week I Ttfe session comprised 39 sitting days, so that, for every day's work, each one of our members pocketed the nice little sum of £4. But, it may be argued, the session just terminated was an unusually short one, and it is scarcely likely that the representatives will, for years to come, be again absent from their homes for co brief a period. Well, we will allow that on every future occasion Parliament will be in session /or the ordinary period of twelve weeks, and what do we then find ? That the weekly payment of members will be no less than £13. JDid Mr Luckie mean to tell us, or, if he meant to tell us, did be expect us to believe, that such a salary was necessary to prevent the work of the legislature falling into. the hands of Done but the richer classes ? Had the people stopped to consider on Wednesday oight, we doubt whether bis statement would have received even the faiut applause that was accorded to if. If it can be conclusively shown to us that to secure good and sound legislation it is absolutely necessary that the country should pay this or even a larger sum we have not a !word to say against it — for in such a case to be penny wise would indeed be to be pound foolish— but, as it is, we have not the slightest reason for supposing that our laws will be better considered, or the discussions upon measures laid before Parliament more ably carried out, than they bava hitherto been, nor will \he tone of the House be in any way improved by offering inducements to professional politicians to obtain seatß therein with a view to ekeing oat a living. It was not our intention, to comment upon this subject until the receipt of , the Hansard, containing the debate and the division lietv. which is not yet to band, but after Mr Luckie'a reixarks and the manner in which tljey \ w%re received, we could no longer refrain from expressing an opinion upon it.