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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7659, 9 June 1886, Page 4

An attempt to induce the Legislative Council to set an example of self-sacrifice to the world at large and more especially the Now Zealand House of Representatives w;is made yesterday and failed. No other result could have been looked for, considering the strange form and manner in which the proposal was brought forward. No doubt the Hon. Mr. Wilson -waa actuated by the loftiest tnetives in wishing that all those taking part in the legislation of the country should become patriots to the extent of surrendering the half of their honorarium, or, in round numbers, A'lOO. But why, in the namo of all that is noble, did he think of restricting the operation of this solf-dcnying act to the present aes3ion only? It looks as if he wished the members of this moribund Parliament to do at least one thing to immortalise its name before giving up the ghost. It does not appear to have occurred to the honourable mover that even had the members of the Council responded to his call to lay their solitary gift on the altar of seif-saeritice, the effect might have been only to bring into bolder relief the seltish greed which has characterised thorn in all previous years. The multitude of their sins in this matter would certainly not have been covered by this one stretch of charity; it would rather have serTed the more to concentrate public attention upon their enormity. It was therefore very ill-judged in Mr. Wilson to invite his co-legislators to perform an act of eelf-immolation under the mask of self-abnegation. We do nofc, of course, impute to him any malice in this peculiar piece of strategy by which he sought to entrap them into passing a sentence of self-condemnation on themselves. But,though desirous to exculpate the hon. member, we are yet compelled to aak n hut the object was that he really had in?'

view? Had his proposal been that henceforth the honorarium should be only half of what it has been hitherto, we could have credited him with an honest desire to induce his co-legislators to play a generous part towards their country. That also, it is true, .would have been a condemnation of the past; but it would at least have had the merit of being an act of reformation. It would have been a frank admission of wrong, coupled with a determination to do in the future what was right. But to forego the half of the honorarium for this session only, and then return to the baneful practice of exorbitantly drawing upon the people's Treasury, why that were to make all our legislators resemble the man whose uneradicated love for unclean spirits made his latter end worse than the first. With all honeat citizens we desire heartily to save our legislators from so ignoble a destiny, and hare therefore to advise the Hon. Mr. Wilson, or some other would-be patriot, to enter forthwith upon the mission of raising them all up to an abiding platform of patriotism by prevailing on them from this time forth to be content with just half the amount they have been accustomed to take for the great services they render the country.