CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7985, 14 March 1906, Page 3

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS.

The House of Commons has just approved, by a verygfsubstantial majority, of the principle of payment of members, and although the resolution has no operative effect it is uaquestiouably of value in that it gives an indication of the feeling of parties and of the trend of public opinion, says a Southern paper. The proposal did not come from the Labour camp, although no doubt the great progress of the workers' political movement has inspired it. In the Old Country the Labour leaders do not regard the payment of members as a reform of pressing urgency. . If all the trades unionists and organised workers could be induced to subscribe THE VERY MODEST SUM of a shilling a year, a campaign fund of £112,000 a year would be available, so that the financial problem of labour representation can be solved without assistance from the State. Whether the niaintennuce of their parliamentary representatives is a just oharge upon the'workers is quite another question. In New Zealand we have long since committed ourselves to the DEMOCRATIVE PRINCIPLE OP THE PAYMENT of members, and are disposed to be rather impatient with the arguments that are used against it in the Old Country. The march of progress is j slow in Great Britain, however, and the Imperial Parliament will, perhaps, consider the electoral reform motion that Mr Rowlands is proposing to be of more pressing importance. The cost of parliamentary elections, by some strange development of British practioe, is thrown upon the unfortunate candidates, the defeated as well as the victors, so that the modest two-flgure re. turns of eleotion expenses that are prevalent in this country are quite out of the question in the Old Land. The Government, we are told, has accepted Mr Rowlands' motion in favour of the payment of election costs out of the public funds, so that probably this principle also will be affirmed by the House of Commons. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in expressing approval of the principle of payment of members, regretted that there was no money at present available for the rmrpose, but there should surely he no difficulty in providing out of the public funds for the payment of returning officers and other electoral officials once in four or five years.