SALARIES OF MEMBERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11770, 27 September 1901, Page 6

SALARIES OF MEMBERS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The caucus of the Government party on the proposed increase of the salaries of members, as reported in your issue of yesterday, can only be regarded as a pitiful, although not surprising, revelation of moral weakness and casuistry. One fact, however, it unwittingly —there is a something stronger, more authoritative, than any caucus, than any autocrat. In vain the Premier, like one recently inoculated with Imperial serum, and who " would a Kaiser be," declares that he will allow no man, no irresponsible member like Captain Russell, no, not the Governor himself—to interfere in that department (the finance) for which the Government is responsible (as though it were not the duty of Captain Russell and of every member to keep surveillance over Government revenue and expenditure) : in vain he holds the Auditor-General in subjection, and threatens his extinction; in vain he shouts he " won't bear what ho has borne," that he " won't do this or won't •do that:" there is within his steel-ringed breast, despite all this braggart, a troublesome belief in a dominant Power without the House that makes for righteousness, called "Public Opinion." Under this conviction lie gave that notable rebuff to the unions anent the Conciliation Boards. In the caucus he betrayed a profound consciousness of that same ghostly presence; ho could not got beyond the sound of what this shadowy form had said, or was saying, or might say! When one short year ago he defended the £40j*>p, or grab, as he now thinks it, and, in Kaiser fashion, said ho would bring in a BQI to raise the salaries of members to

£300, with perquisites, he evinced no infallible signs of perturbation; but now, when promises and class legislation and socialistic graspings, like chickens and curses, come home to roost, and threaten the ruin ot the family. Richard Cceur do Lion has the tremors. That dread shadow blocks tho way! "Quo Vadis!" "Whither goest thou?" That he had pledged the £300 and perquisites he can't deny! But sinco then (the casuist says) "the unexpected" has happened! Estimates have swelled up; tho "Dook's visit" has been an untold expense; capital has become close and hard-fisted; loan is very shy: the unions have ridden the Board to death; industries are threatened; Yankee boots arc everywhere; New Ze a . land mining is " out of the running" on the, London 'Change ; old age pensions are earing more than he could dream: the roadless, raiHess North is clamouring for "means;" claimants surround the Treasurer lik<* a flock* of shameless, hissing geese: and there is the little bill for that South Sen tour, and for that " goregous book in red and gold" (so Imperial-like) ; and upon all these there will be the Royal Coronation visit, and a new Windsor suit! How can I evade (asks the casuist) this plighted troth, the promise of the £300, with perquisites, without damping tho zeal of my supporters? " 1 have it! Throw the responsibility upon tho members themselves! Let them bear the brunt of * '. public censure, and so shield me—me. upon 1 whom they cast the odium of the £40 sop, j and would make answerable for this increase I they so much crave!" Here, then, is tho I clue to this ''caucus," and to tho Premier's astute stipulation. He knows (as every member of his patty knows) that, the face of the shadowy "Power" is against this evil project, or why not make direct appeal to its verdict? Arc servants of the State their own valuators.' What if the manager of a limited-liability company railed its employees together and said: " Yes. you want an increase of wages, though not an increase of work, and the same scale for every man, skilled or unskilled! Well, you shall have what you want, but on this one condition, that you all meet the shareholders and own the responsibility for the demand and for the increase!'' What else would, or could, the shareholders do, but cashier the whole lot, manager and all? Why did not the Premier cut tiie knot of this financial question by an appeal to the shareholders of the great colonial company? Why did he not say to the House: "Gentlemen, we have no right to touch any increase of salary without- the sanction of the constituencies, without, a new national contract!" This was tho instinct alike of common sense and of common honesty. What mercantile concern can bo said to be paying its way that only lives by loaning? What business firm would go on borrowing and spending and adding nothing to reserved capital? Who can look around at the needs at the crowd of liabilities and claimants upon the revenue and sanction this proposed increase? Who among the members of the House will count the thousands and thousands of men as virtuous and as intelligent as themselves, whose whole year's toiling and moiling does not bring in a salary of £300, and who thus work not only for a livelihood, but work also in other ways for the social, municipal, and national good, without receiving o. expecting fee of any amount, and then feel it right to take this offered increase? Mr. Napier, on the outbreak of the South African war. mado a poetic appeal at that grand patriotic demonstration in the old drill-shed to the soldierly spirit of selfsacrifice! Let him now review on imaginary parade the remnants of the returned contingents, and ask what " fee" they havereceived for their noblo service? Then let him ask his heart and conscience whether it would not be his duty and his joy to transfer this "unearned increment" of £60 to the brave and often needy troopers, and to the families of the bereaved? Sure, he will count these troopers of small worth, judged by their pay! "See what men you have lost." said he to the House, "hecauso you would not pay their worth!" I submit, sir, that any man of true worth will think less of " pay" than of work; that the men of most worth have been the least careful of pay ! I submit that a man or a community that cannot bring the loftiest motives to the lowliest duties, who can only be moved to serve by appeal to selfishness, is demoralised and demoralising. This, sir, as you know, is the teaching of that great economist and prophet, .John Buskin, that "with all brave and risrhtly-trained men their work is first, their fee is seconds Very important always, hut still second. But in every nation, as I said, there are a vast class who are ill-educated, cowardly, and more or lesi stupid; and with these people just as certainly the fee is first and the work second, as with brave people the work is first and the fee second. And this is no small distinction. It is the whole distinction in a man ; distinction between life and death in him, between heaven and hell for him. Yen cannot serve two masters; you must serve one or the other. If your work is first with you and your fee second, work is your master, and the Lord of Work, who is Rod. But if your fee is first with you and your work second, fee is your master, and the lord of fee, who is the devil."— am. etc., Edwin Coy September 26, 1901.