The Opunake Times. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1905. MEMBERS' HONORARIUM.

Opunake Times, Volume XXII, Issue 774, 19 September 1905, Page 2

The Opunake Times. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1905. MEMBERS' HONORARIUM.

During the late discussion of the Estimates only the fewest possible numbers of our paid servants troubled one bit about the matter, and those few treated the business as if it were the most trifling circumstance. There was a chronic disposition on both sides of the House "to let things slide." Ministers of Parliament treat the spending of the country's money with much less reverence than they would treat the spending of a sixpence of their own coin, and most of them don't bother to look into the Chamber at all. They are, to put in plainly, robbing the people of the money that they got in payment for their supposed services. Here is the point (says a contemporary). You pay a man say 10s a day to work for you for eight hours. If he calls in in a desultory manner and looks at his work and then finds his way towards some other place and expects to be paid full time when he comes back, you tell him some home truths—and don't pay him. But you pay members a good deal more than two-thirds of them are worth to do your business. They don't do it. They talk about every conceivable subject under the sun until work such as the Estimates crops up and they fade away. If there is any member in the House who feels that this is robbery of the public purse he ought to move that Parliamentarians should be paid only for the work they pretend they are doing.