The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 1883. MEMBERS' WIVES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1472, 1 September 1883, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 1883. MEMBERS' WIVES.

■What next? Members wives Jiave become a Cabinet question! Members' wives have been before the House! Members' wives are before the country We are called upon to discuss members' wives,-and who knows how soon we may bo brought face to face with their "Sisters, their cousins, and their aunts V The following is the Times' report of the most unique incident which ever transpired in any Parliamentary Mr Brackbn asked the Government, if they do not deem it desirable to afford the same facilities to Southern members to bring thoir wives to Wellington during the session as are. afforded, to Northern members ? He brought this forward to rebut au imputation of meanness made against himself by Mr M. W. Green, that he had tried to eyade pay-, iug his wife's passage. Tho fact was, the Hon. Mr Oliver assured him the Cabinet had decided that the wives of Southern members should have free pa ssage to Wellington, tho same as wives of Northern members. The Union Company did afterwards makea demand on him for his wife's passage, Hon, Mr Dick replied that tlio Cabinot did come to the decision which the Hon! Mr Oliveb said they had dono,. There had been some mistake in thesubsecmenfc domand made by the Union Company in this ease, Mr M. W. Ghekn, at a lator stago, rose to make a personal explanation as to what Mr Bracken had said during his absence from tho Chamber. Tho effect was to repudiato what Mr Bracken had attributed to him, and ho said thathon, member had shown jiim-. self to be what ho had, on a previous d<>y, described Mr Green to be. (This was understood to moan " as soft as a boiled turnip.") Mr BiucpN alao rose to make a personal explanation. Mr Gbeen further replied. Mr Bracken wanted to further retort; but the Speaker stopped the personal bickering, the House being very impatient, What next} Will members' wives come to the front at the next general election I Will the cry be " vote for BkACKEN, he has a wife and five small children," or "votefor M. W. Green, he has a wife and seven small children." We have as yet no special knowledge of the extent of the family circle of either of these gentlemen, but if these matters are to be deemed public questions we shall be glnd to be supplied with full particulars. What poor pitiful fellows the members of our House of Parliament seem to be 1 Nothing Beems to be sacred with them but allowances. An ordinary settler with what is termed the "feelingsof a man" would sooner lose five pounds or ten pounds as the case might be than throw his wife jn form pauperis on

the benevolence of the State, but theso men, the representative men of tho colony, seem dead to allnlanly instincts, and only alive to the meanest greed for state pickings, Members of the Bouse of JRepresenMven should | surely be contented with their liberal [ parliamentary • salaries, their free passes over all the railways in the colony, and the incidental pickings which come in their way, without demanding allowances for their wives. How can they be trustel to expend public money/ when thoy display sucn a hunger for it themselves 1 If this sort of thing be not stopped, theHouse will become so corrupt that an Oliver Cromwell will be required to purify it, It has already reached ut stage of degradation that makes us rejoice that only another year of existence is allotted to it, Should the next election fail to return better men, New Zealand will lose its good name, We' blame Ministers for consenting to this wretched paltry allowance for members wives. No independent journal and no. independent colonist can consistently support them if they

truckle to benevolences of this kind and distribute the funds of the colony, the money of the people, in bribes to members wives,