AN DEPUTATION AND A DEFENCE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12482, 19 April 1906, Page 4

AN DEPUTATION AND A DEFENCE.

(rfiO_ OCR OWK COKRESPONDEST.) LONDON, March 17. Mr W. Gentry Bingham writes to a Landon paper complaining of it* reference to the "doubtful purity of colonial poliitics" as an argument against the motion in favour of payment of members. 3Lr Gentry Bingham enters an emphatic protest against this imputation. He says:—"lt has been my fortune to promote private Bills in several of the colonial Legislatures, as well as in the Imperial Parliament, and my experience compels mc to place on record my entire dissent from any comparison to the disadvantage of the colonial Parliaments. On the contrary, I hold the opinion, based an personal knowledge and experience, that, if anything, a higher ideal of public duty exists among the members of colonial Legislatures than even in the Imperial Parliament itself up to the present. Certainly the standard of conduct in regard to purity of politicians in the colonies affords no argument against payment of members either there or here.

"In tho early ,part of last year," continues Mr Bingham, "you published a letter from mo in which I had occasion to speak of my experiences of, and treatment by, the Labour Party of Australia, whom I stated I found to oomsist of 'very -white men indeed.' I may add that my experience of the New Zealand Parliament was precisely the same, and I very gravely doubt whether in similar circumstances the same fairness of treatment and disinterested consideration would have been meted out by any British House of Commons. In proof of my assertion"! may state that it Lb within my knowledge that documents containing admissions on the part of certain English promoters of the baser sort, who need not be named, of improper approaches to certain colonial statesmen, whom it is unnecessary to name also, as these approaches met with the contempt they merited, were laid before English Ministers with a view to prevent the recurrence of such reprehensible practices, with the lamentable result that English Ministers saw nothing in such practices to merit a publio reprobation. The 'doubtful purity' in this instance surely belongs to English, not colonial, politics. I trust, sir, you will hapten to remove this undeserved slur which your article, I must believe thoughtlessly, oasts upon our colonial fellow subjects."

To this is appended tlhe following editorial footnote:—"We are _lad to be able to publish Mr Bingham's protect, against the change of 'doubtful purity' which is sometimes levelled against colonial politics. The term was used by us in a summary which we gave in our leading columns of the different objections wlhiich aro raised against payment of members of Parliament in Great Britain. Wo dEid not, and do not, in any way en dense Uia accusation. We are grateful to Mr Bingham far having given us the opportunity of making our position clearer than it appears to have hcen in tho article to which he refers."