The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1889. SCANDAL IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1843, 22 January 1889, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1889. SCANDAL IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

A cnxNGE of Government has taken place in New South Wales, and Sir Henry Parkes is once more in opposition—and, if the most recent item of news to hand is true, it was time. We have been accustomed to complain bitterly—and not without reason—of the way public money has been spent in this colony to benefit the properties of a few large capitalists, but all this was done in the light of day, and with the full sanction of the majority of Parliament. It was not so in New South Wales. Some time ago the Government found that over 4000 men were out of employment in New South Wales, and that it was indispensably necessary to provide work for them. With this object in view, a new public body entitled the Casual Labor Board was constituted, and it was provided with funds by the Government for the purpose of getting the unemployed work. It is said that this Board—of which members of the Ministry were members—provided work for the unemployed in improving their :own private, properties and thus spent a quarter of a million of money.. Recently inquiries led to the discovery that the men were employed chiefly in making roads and bridges for improving the properties of some of the members of the Government, while some public works which stood much in need of being carried out were not touched. Further inquiries revealed the fact that the Board kept no minutes of its meetings, and that its accounts have not been audited — and the inference drawn from these facta is that this was done designedly so that no record should exist to bear witness of their perfidy. This is the substance of letters published by several of our contemporaries from their Sydney correspondents. These letters bore the date of the second of the present month, and since then the cable has informed us of how Mr Want made deliberate charges against the Government; how the House called on the Premier for an , explanation, and how the Premier, instead of explaining, handed in his resignation to*the Governor. In the face of these facts we are left no room to doubt the accuracy of the charges, and, when we come to reflect upon it, we can only feel astonished at the audacity of the imposture. It is something really incredible that men occupying the position of Ministers of the Crown could be guilty of such conduct; but when the past history of New South Wales is recollected it will be remembered that it has been chiefly made up of a succession of similar frauds. There were the railway frauds, and other frauds which we can not now bring to mind—and politicians are said to have been concerned in all of them ; and yet the people of that colony seem to regard them as incidents undeserving of much notice, for they return the same men to power time after time.

Erom the conduct of New South Wales legislators we in this colony can, if we choose, learn a lesson. Our present Parliament has reduced the honorarium of members, and it has also passed an Act to reduce the number of members. There are many who believe in both measures, and not a few who think it would be wise to pay members of Parliament nothing at all. Now the members of the New South Wales legislature are paid nothing at all, and consequently they are all men of wealth, for, of course, it would be impossible for poor men to go into Parliament without being paid for it. The world can see what they are. The argument we frequently hear used is, that if we paid no honorarium to our members a better class of men would go into politics. No doubt representatives of squatters, banks, and mortgage companies would very readily fall in with an arrangement of that sort. It would pay them to go into Parliament to make laws to suit themselves; but, would they prove a better class of men in the end? Is there on the face of the earth a more blackguardly or degraded Parliament than that of New South Wales, where the members receive no honorarium? We ought to remember this when politicians are extolling the virtues of unpaid representatives, and descanting on the vices of the mercenary carpet-baggers who go to Parliament for the sake of the honorarium. We ought to remember that the “ laborer is worthy of his hire,” no matter what the labor may be; that this is an age in which no man cares to work for nothing, and if a man gives his time for nothing to serve his country in Parliament he'' will find some means of recouping' himself. With the experience of New South Wales before us, we ought never think of such a thing as to abolish payment of members, as it is the worst thing that could possibly be done. It appears now that the P/rkes party were not satisfied with being in opposition; they have already carried a vote of no-confidence in the new Ministry, and a general election is the result. It is evident from this that after all they are not afraid of going before the public again; but, of course, New South Wales was originally a convict settlement.