THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1911. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10425, 16 September 1911, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1911. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

British members of Parliament are now to be paid at the <raite of £4OO a year, and this new kiepiarture is not iby any means considered an unmixed,. Messing. There lias been no ouitsMe .pressure brought to bear to force the Government to carry this 'measure, .and it Qias' been brought about iflor purely party purposes. Tdie London Times, which is very . outspoken on the subject, says not eventhe inexhaustible invention applied by this Government to the manufacture of mandates can discover any pretest for saying that the country 'has given a mandate for the payment of memlbeirs. On the contrary thlere are grave misgivings among the rank and file of the Government's supporters as .to the unpopularity of the proceeding and its effect 'upon their own fortunes. There is no mandate and no desire for the proposed change among the members of the House of Commons..

I is not even so much as cor.- ■ vfxiHioia or (belief among members of I ''<&© Government that payment. ■■ of I uneimbers will be good for tne coun|try. Some such belief wil pro»ibably be feigned to-day, but it will J Jiot impose upon any one. lit is perfectly well known (to all the world that the Government have no conviction or belief of the kind, and that .payment of members would r never have been proposted (by them were it not (that they do not know how to meet the difficulty of dealing with the Osborne judgment. Tihey ihave merely snatched tat payment of members, "as an expedient for geting round that inconvenience. They ent must have permanent and far-' reaching consequences whEcli, so far as hiumian foresight can go, wilil be evil. TQiat does not mnt'ter in the least, or rather it matters only to the extent that they proceed to rush the mntter through without giving either the Houce cr the country time to consider what the oonsequen--1 ces wM'l be. If anyihing could add I to the cynicism of .their proceedings it- i& supplied by the fact that theyj 'have not so w <uch. as the assurance | that, payment of members will secure the object they have in view. The whole tilling is merely a gamMer's* Ithlrow. The Labour Party are quite ready to take the payment, but they hlave made it plain that ithey do not on that account relinquish .their demand 1 (for wflrat tihey call ithe reversal of .the Osborne judgment. AH that the- Gnovernmeiat hiave to go upon is' speculation. They hope that in some way Ithe payment of m&mibera will put them/ in a better position as against the Labour Parity, ■ should that party ipersisft, as ,it has declared it wil persist, in pressing its -demands. Tlh'at :is tte miserable mess of ppitAage for iwihicih rtihe Government are ready to sacrifice the permanent interesitsi of the nation.