Members & Their Jobs

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 730, 1 August 1929, Page 8

Members & Their Jobs

Politicians are Not Independent

ANYONE who believes that a Member of the New Zealand Parliament can live in comfort on £9 a week, has underestimated the standard of living demanded of the politician. For most of the members, Parliamentary representation is not a full-time job, and when the House rises nearly all go back to their farms, resume control of their -business houses, or return to some other bread-winning task.

Parliament is a full-time job so far as tlie continuity of the salary is concerned. Members receive regular cheques totalling £450 a year, and in return for this consideration they are expected to be ever at call during the recess, and to be in regular attendance when the House meets for the annual session. But in the main their full time is not devoted to the welfare of the State and of their constituents.

Staunch advocates on the floor of Parliament of the one-maii-one-job principle are to be found, during recess, giving instructions from a solicitor's chair to an efficient typiste who has held the business together while the session was on. Enthusiastic supporters in the House, of British preference and Empire shopping, may be discovered signing orders on behalf of their firms for American motor-cars and German toys. When a member does nothing in particular to supplement his Parliamentary income, or when he wishes to conceal his spare-time livelihood, he describes himself simply as a “Member of Parliament.” Some of them, of course, have no wish to be anything else, and remain content with a life of nine months’ comparative leisure and three heart-breaking, health-destroying months in the legislative chamber. REPRESENTATIVE CALLINGS At the last General Election, a man who had been in the House for some years sat with his daughter in a tiny office waiting for the final result of his poll. He turned to her suddenly as the figures piled up against him. “If I am beaten, I’ll have to go back to work/’ he complained patheticaUy. And so it is with every defeated candidate. Back to work, whether it be on the wharf, in the shop, in the warehouse or in the pulpit, is the fate of the politician who has lost the support of his electors. In the present Parliament there is perhaps the most varied assemblage that has yet graced the floor of New Zealand’s House of Representatives. If ministers of the Gospel should claim first mention, then Parliament has one. If wharf labourers should be next on the list, then Parliament has one. But there are callings more widely represented than these meagre figures. There are 21 general farmers, five sheep-farmers, and two retired farmers in the House

watching the interests of the agricultural and pastoral community. Sixteen of them belong to Reform, nine to United and one to Laboui*. Two are independent. The dignity of the law is upheld by seven solicitors, one of whom controls the House from the Speaker's Chair, and one of whom is in Sir Joseph Ward’s Cabinet. A certain percentage of members drift into Parliament from journalism. Two Cabinet Ministers claim this profession, one of them, the Hon. P. A. de la Perrelie, owning and conducting a newspaper in the far South. Another, the Minister of Health. Mr. Stallworthy, is a free lance. Mr. D. G. Sullivan entered politics from the staff of “The Sun,” Christchurch, and the Labour leader, Mr. H. E. Holland, has long since established himself as a journalist. MILKMAN IN THE HOUSE

A member from whom a great deal of broad wit was heard recently is a carrier in the South. His milk cart is a familiar figure in his home town. The youngest member in the House. Mr. G. C. Black, only last year was carrying Parliamentary papers into the Chamber in his capacity as clerk. A prominent member of the Cabinet, Mr. W. A. Veitch, was an engine driver on the railways and still describes himself as such. Another Cabinet Minister, Mr. H. Atmore, is simply a member of Parliament, though his little business as a painter at Nelson has for years been a useful adjunct to his Parliamentary salary. Several members are agents—a title which covers a multitude of things. There are two contractors. One is the principal in a big firm in Auckland: the other a Labour man—a manual co-operative contractor. A few have little retail businesses tucked away in their home towns. One is a grocer in Wellington; another a draper at Christchurch: still another a baker at Dunedin. A honeyblender lives at Auckland. Five Labour members are secretaries, one of them of a flourishing newspaper on the West Coast, while other parties claim a dentist, a veterinary surgeon, and one or two company directors.

But just now members of Parliament have sufficient to think about in ridding the House of the Budget debate, which is due next week. Then there is much to do before they may close their desks and start the great trek of Parliamentarians back to work.