UNEQUAL REDUCTIONS.

Patea Mail, 27 July 1880, Page 2

UNEQUAL REDUCTIONS.

M. U.K.’s have agreed to reduce their pay by 10 per cent.; and they have imposed the same sacrifice on the Legislative Council. The majority fought hard against proposed reductions of 20 and 15 per cent. They had just before reduced the pay of the Sergeant-at-arms by 40 per cent;, and several other servants by 30 and 20 per cent. But in their own case a reduction of one-tenth was all that the majority would concede. It is ever so ! . Precept and practice do not go together, especially with politicians. We hold a strong opinion that, as Parliament was primarily responsible for the previous extravagance in colonial finance, the punishment ought to have fallen on members in the first instance. It might appropriately have taken the form of a reduction by 50 per cent, in the honorarium; and none too much, either. The payment to members is a dangerous principle, and should be maintained only to the extent of paying for actual travelling expenses. To give a salary is to hold out an improper temptation to men who desire to-gain notoriety and make a trade of politics. There is the danger, on the other side, of playing into the hands of a moneyed class ; and that would be a calamity, as every student of history knows, : The payment of travelling expenses would probably be a happy medium. The most surprising feature of this question

is that members as a body hare not shown pnblie spirit enough to make a large voluntary surrender - of a public “ honorarium” at a time when the colony is not able to afford presents to anybody. Members will have their “ pound of flesh,” whoever else may suffer. This is a melancholy characteristic of the low morality which marks public life in this colony.