PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5351, 22 May 1878, Page 2

PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

♦ TO THE EDITOR OV THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sin, —The question of payment of members is, I observe, exciting considerable l attention in this colony, and is strongly 'opposed'By many of our leading politicians. l ‘The opponents, however, generally admit that members should be paid what they are pleased to call bare expenses. What is bare expenses ? Must each member produce his bill of particulars at tho close of each session ; or aro wo to take as the standard what it would cost a member, to live comfortably in Wellington with'his'wife and family during the session, or the expenses of a member who coops himself in a boardinghouse at 30s. per week, neglecting his family and enduring all tho discomforts—'arising from such separation ? “■'■This uudefinablo bare expenses theory which is now being adopted must inevitably end in the throwing the representation of tho colony into the hands of the wealthy on the one band, and the political loaftr on the other, to'-tho exclusion of 1 the mercantile and agricultural classes and the upper : class artisans, members from whose ranks are notably falling away from the present House, while many others must ere long follow for the si tuple reason that they cannot afford to neglect their business for the small consideration now awarded.. Having thus practically shut out the great middle class—the great wealth-producing and taxpaying portion of the community—the; Legislature will do well by going yet further'm* the same direction and exclude the political loafer element, which can be easily done by abandoning payment altogether.' The question should bo payment for services rendered-on.a similar scale as other public services are'paid, or non-payment pure and simple; - Theforjntr would give tho widest possible rAnge-inrths

■ choice of our representatives J the lutter would confine the choice to iv small number of our more wealthy colonists, but it would posse a the great merit of excluding from public life a class’ of men in every way unfitted for the situation. It you pay, the high or low class

of men you will bring into the field will be in proportion to tho rate of pay offered.; You may talk of patriotism, and that men should serve their country from patriotic motives and not be influenced by the sordid consideration of pay, but it is a fact that cannot be ignored that patriotism in democratic countries such aa New Zealand seldom reaches much nearer the heart than the breeches pocket.—l am, &c., Q-