POLITICAL SALARIES.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 275, 15 July 1932, Page 6

POLITICAL SALARIES.

' C. J.

TUCK.

(To the Editor) Sir, — I am sure we all must be grateful to Mr. Clinkard for his lucid explanation as to the reason why we are getting ten per cent. legislation — he goes on to quote figures of leg- ; islative costs in Australia, and it ! would appear as though our legisla- ! tors received less remuneration for | their arduous duties than Australians. ; >Our legislators must go on the prini ciple of a noted m.eteorologist, who , when asked why he did not give us better weather, replied, "Well, what do you expect for £360 a year? Are you not getting good value for your money?" j Hence we are geting legislation " written on our statute hook that will go down to posterityas ten per cent., probably because our legislators : j thought it was good value for our money. As an instance of their stupidity we have the unemployment tax on women without any provision made for sustenance, and I say unhesitatingly that any man or body of men who would sanction any such i morale destroying legislation is not worth the money paid them, small as their pay is. | Why, in this town alone, I know of women who have spent all their j lives in New Zealand, yet the have ' j now to live on the cold "charity of ' others. ! | Again we have old men and wo- ' ' men who have toiled and struggled j to keep themselves decent, built up j | our country to what it was, and then j were f oolish enough to hand it over 1 to a lot of time servers. ! If the above hypothesis is fundaI mentally correct, then Mr. Coates and Mr. Clinkard are sailing in different boats at present; as Mr. 1 Coates is reported as having said that cheap labour does as much as highly paid labour. No doubt quite a number will believe him, that is if we take a line between our relief workei-s and Cabinet ministers. , : i I am, etc.,

Rotorua, July 12.