PARLIAMENTARY BONUS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 29 November 1929, Page 14

PARLIAMENTARY BONUS.

"DISGRACEFUL" PROCEDURE

REFORM CANDIDATE'S VIEWS.

[Br CtELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Thursday. The action of members of Parliament in voting themselves a bonus of £IOO was criticised last evening by Mr. Harold F. Johnston, Reform candidate for the Hutt seat, in the course of his opening speech in the by-election campaign. Mr. Johnston said ha thought the way in which the increase had been passed in the House was a disgrace. It would liavo been a disgrace to any country or Government in the world. He did not believe for one moment, had Sir Joseph Ward been in good health and able to enter the House, that he would have permitted the thing to go, through in the way it did. The "United Government, however, had to take the blame for its administration.

The proposal for the £IOO allowance was contained in a Government measure. The Government controlled the time' of the House and the finances of the country, and it was the United Government that could not spare time for more important things, but could spare the time to vote £7OOO or £BOOO for an allowance to members. The Government bad said: " The £7OOO or £BOOO we are paying ourselves is of no importance" ; but the money would have been of great use had it been made available to school teachers or been used to keep the school children warm.

Mr. Coatcs had taken up the proper attitude on the matter in advocating increases in the salaries of civil servants before members increased their o\yu salaries. The Labour Party and t lie United Party, however, had control of the House and put the vote through in the dying hours of the session. There bad been no mandate from the country for the allowance to be voted. He applauded the action of those who had refused 'to take the money.

Mr. Johnston said ho did not say that members' salaries were sufficient, but there was a proper method of proposing an increase. The matter should have been brought lip in the final session of Parliament, when it could have been fully debated, and, if approved, passed so as to take effect in the following year, so that (he members voting on it would receive no immediate benefit themselves. Members elected at the' ensuing general election could then have taken the money with clean hands. -Any Government that took any other course should bo turned out.