TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3045, 16 November 1908, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

PAYMENT OF MEMBERS

A payment of £3OO a year does not leave a great deal for a member to expend in any display of liberality after he had paid his increased expenses and made some modest provision for the future, says the "Lyttelton Times." Of course, there are still a number] of members who are able to distribute their bounty in the old stylj and to earn a good deal of popularity in the process. But these gentlemen are not often the most desirable representatives, and their

methods of "sweetening" their constituencies ought to be discouraged. When the new Parliament is reviewing the electoral laws it might very well consider whether it should not be made illegal for a member to spend more than a certain amount in subscriptions and donations in hi! own constituency. A law of this kind would put a stop to a large amount of thinly-veiled bribery.

FEDERAL POLITICS. The resignation of Mr Deakin and the acceptance of office by Mr Fisher, the leader of the Federal Labour Party, follows closely on the lines of a similar happening in 1904, Mr Deakin then lost the support of the Labour party owing to a disagreement over the Arbitration Act. Mr Watson took office and held it for some months, to be in his turn defeated by a combination of the other two parties. This time, Mr Deakin has lost the support of the Labour party over the new Protection proposals. The Federal High Court declaring certain conditional Customs duties to be unconstitutional, Mr Deakin proposed to set up an InterState Commission to deal with the matter. The Labour party, which had induced Mr Deakin to accept the "New Protcetion," under which the protection of certain industries is to depend upon the maintenance of wages and conditions in" the trades advantaged, quarrelled with him over the Commission question and withdrew its support. Mr Fisher can only hold office as long as Messrs Deakin and Reid refrain from combining against him.