MINISTERS' TRAVELLING EXPENSES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 3 December 1913, Page 4

MINISTERS' TRAVELLING EXPENSES.

It i'i characteristic of Mr G. W. Rus&ell, the disgruntled, member for Avon;, that he should make undignitield iud unwarranted statements frou his'place id Parliament concerning the'-'tmyellipg expenses of Ministers of thje Crown. A return that had beeis :furnjshed at, the request of; an inquisitive member showed"that the expenses of the stop : gap Ministry; of which' Mr Russell was an. illuminating unit, .were considerably in excess of those of the Reform Ministry. Mr Russell endeavoured to hide hip confusion in a flow of ungenerous and undignified misrepresentation. fie asserted, for instance,,that the expenses of the Hon. F. M. B. Fisher, on, the occasion of his visit'to Australia,; amounted to over £4OO, when,' as a matter of fact, they were only £147. He further charged the Minister of Custom with travelling the country with a lawn tennis team at the expense of the taxpayers, when everybody knew v that Mr Fisher was having a. holiday at his' own expense. Parliamentary life is strenuous under the best of circumstances. It will be a poor thing if Ministers, and members are to be lampooned without the i slightest justification...'