SALARIES OF MT.’S

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 80, 28 December 1929, Page 8

SALARIES OF MT.’S

THE £lOO ALLOWANCE METHOD OF PAYMENT ANOTHER REFUSAL REPORTED Members of Parliament have now received the bulk of the £lOO extra allowance they voted themselves in the dying hours of last session. It was intended originally to pay over the grant in a lump sum, but this arrangement was departed from by Treasury, who forwarded to members cheques for £66/13/4, representing a monthly apportionment of £B/6/8, for a period of eight months to November last. The balance, £25, will be paid in monthly instalments, together with the usual allowance, over January, February and March next, the sum of £B/6/8 due for December having been paid in conjunction with this month’s honoraria payment. • Treasury, it is assumed, adopted this method of payment to avoid confusion over the allocation to be made to the candidate the Hutt constituency at the by-election would return as its representative In Parliament Mr; Nash was not a member of Parliament during the first eight months of the financial year, and presumably he will receive the extra allowance only for December, January, February and March. This adjustment is facilitated by the course Treasury has followed. Mr. R. A. Wright, Reform member for Wellington Suburbs, who announced that he would not accept the allowance, received, with other members, the cheque for £66/13/4, and paid the sum back into the Public Account, at the same time giving instructions that the remalninlg instalments were not to be paid to him. As indicated previously, the Leader of the Opposition (Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates) advised the manager of his bank at Dargavilie that he would not touch the money until- the claims of the lower-paid public servants had been met. It is stated that Mr. T. D. Burnett, Reform member for Temuka, has also declined to accept the additional money.