The Hastings Standard Published Daily. THURSDAY, OCT. 22, 1896. A CLUSTER OR CANDIDATES.

Hastings Standard, Issue 152, 22 October 1896, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily.

THURSDAY, OCT. 22, 1896. A CLUSTER OR CANDIDATES.

For the cansi:' that lacks assistance, Ft (lie that need resistance. For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

Now that there is an apparent calm in the politic-ill atmosphere a calm which foretells the .storm of election speeches and the impenetrable vaporing* of thickheaded candidates —we may glance at the mechanism of Parliament. What is there so attractive about " getting into Parliamentthat induces so many people, good and bad, to try and foist themselves on the electors ? There is first of all the alleged natural ambition to serve one's country. Who really believes in this ? llow many of those who have served us in Parliament have entered the chamber with the passion of patriotism burning in them ? " To serve one's country " is an exploded fiction ; it is a discredited fairy title, and its reiteration by candidates does not increase its value. llow can there be patriotism or altruism when success means £240 a year and pickings"? Is it possible to conceive that a man whose trade labor does not soar above a week is swayed wholly or in part by an irresistible altruism to secure £2lO for about eighteen weeks' labor *? Against the patriotic theory we have this fact, that where a member finds that his private interests suffer he retires from Parliamentary arena with celerity. The plethora of candidates at a general election is due almost entirely to the enormous fee paid to members, and to the payment of members is due also the somewhat seedy character of Parliament. Men who have not a sovereign at stake in the country, but whose lung energy may be reckoned at so much horse power invariably appear behind the footlights to address

In i c i d !* -he seedy, needy, axe-grinding candidate has a plausible style and is glib of tongue his chances of success are magnificent. We may safely say that fifty per cent of the candidates who will, during the next few weeks, be emitting the veriest political rot will be men whose sole ambition is to secure the fat fees that fall to successful members. We know of a candidate who has been in the ranks of the unemployed for many months past who will make a prodigious effort at small expense to secure the £240 honorarium. As he himself puts the matter " I am doing nothing, and I might as well have a 'buck' for it as anything else." A fair per centage of the candidates will be forced into the field by their unbounded conceit. Home of thei,n have possibly served on a Koad ]>oard or some such minor corporation and may have in a small way met with success, and impelled by a conceit born of ignorance they step into the larger arena of politics with self-assurance and vile grammar, and unfortunately too often succeed. Then we have the axegriuding candidate. This individual generally has a good backing, for it invariably happens that there are others who will profit by his success. The axe-grinding member has been the curse of the country, and the many political railways, roads and bridges bear testimony of his energy. Let the honorarium be cut down to the level of actual expenses, say to .£IOO for the session, varying with its length but never to exceed the sum named, and we venture to say the number of candidates that would woo the suffrages of the electors would not be more than suflicieiit to make a contest in each electorate. The high fees has evolved a class of professional politicians men who live by and through being in Parliament, —for it must not be supposed that i"210 a year is all that a politician earns. His pickings would probably exceed that sum. As far as the working classes are concerned the so-called Labor member is being gradually transformed into a professional, and when the transformation is completed the interests of the workers will be conserved and looked after for so many dollars down. Onc-e in Parliament find handling twenty sovereigns a month the Labor member dreads the possibility of being " returned to store," and he concentrates all his powers and energies in keeping himself in Parliament and pocketing his Parliamentary pay. We shall be classed as political iconoclasts, but nevertheless we cling to the opinion that a smaller honorarium would give us a better Parliament, by eliminating that objectionable being the professional politician.