PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 2970, 28 July 1891, Page 2

PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

TO THK EDITOII. Silt, — Those who were unsophisticated enough to believe in the honesty of tho Ballance Ministry in making the recent reductions in the public expenditure must have had a rude awakening on hearing of the proposal contained in the Payment of Members Bill to increase the amount of the honorarium —dishonorariuin is what a Southern writer has called it, and the word is strikingly appropriate in view of such an audacious proposal as that now made by Ballance and his gar.g. It is proposed that the amount to be paid lion, members shnll be increased to £240 per annum —or at the rate of .£2O per week for the three months which they aro required to spend in Wellington. The amount, I think, is enough to buy some of the present members of tho House right out, body and soul. Prior to 18S7 the amount annually appropriated for honoraria was £210, but in that your, when a more honest party to that now in power were in office, it was reduced to £150. Travelling expenses to and from Wellington are also paid by the colony, bo that £150 in fact is, if anything, a too liberal amount to pay for the questionable services rendered. The personnel of the present House does not compare favourably with that of the Parliaments elected before the system of paid members was introduced. It has woefully deteriorated since then, and the honorarium nml manhood suffrage have been the principal causes of such deterioration. There are loaves and fishes now to strivo for, and the gutter orator, who has been a failure in every other path of life ho has tried, turns his eyes to the Houso as a last resource. Ho knows how to truckle to the cupidity and selfishness of tho umb; they immediately declare him to lie " The Man fur Galway," and put him in. I do not wisii to inf.ii- that all our members are of this stamp: there are some members of the present House who would grace any assiinbly. l>ut when thn honorarium paid is larger than is necessary to cover the actual expenses of members while attending Parliament the effect is certainly to rarliici; the moral tone of the Houst by increasing the number of adventurers who seek election thereto as a means of livelihood. The proposal to increase the honorarium it the present time is simply scandalous. Ballance has been inflicting misery on a gojd many families by retrenchment in the Civil Service, on the plea that such was rendered necessary by the condition of the colony's finances, and !i few weeks afterwards he comes down with a proposal to iuciea.so the cost of tiovernmiMit by £0300 per annum in one swoop. Ho has saved at tho spigot and is now going fco waste at tho bunghnle. Ballance has been in office before, and held the portfolio of Colonial Treasurer. When he was kicked (not figuratively, but literally) out of office by the Knight of Kawau he had the finances of the colony in a. glorious muddle, leaving as a legacy to Sir Harry Atkinson the task of putting them in proper ordor, and the sooner he and his crowd—with their mystifying and bewildering system of taxation, their Shop Hours Bill, and oMier faddish aud mischievous measures— are again removed from the Government benches, the bolter it will be for the colony.—Yours etc., LIJSKKAL