The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1911. PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 108, 27 October 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1911. PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS.

Lord Dudley. ex-Governor-General of the Commonwealth, was prevented from discussing politics or politicians while he . held his high office, and his recent remarks at Worcester, where he reflected on Australian politicians and the ''professional" clement in Australian politics, came as a surprise. Politicians in Australasia are paid for their services, and politicians in Britain are to he. Lord Dudley was very highly paid for his services in Australia, and his objection to the payment of members is all the more strange on that account. The cx-Governor-General could have afforded to undertake his purely ornamental duties at his- own expense, but the majority of Australian or New Zealand politicians could not be in Parliament at all if they were not paid to undertake the "profession" of politics. ''Some very democratic States," sneered the wealthy peer, ''had a body of politicians existing solely on their Parliamentary stipends." This is cheap and unkind. The people are between a candidate and a seat. The people are at liberty to place in a Parliament a "s-a-day laborer or a £IO,OCO-a-year sheep king. It is, of course, at once obvious that an ex-Governor of a democratic country is not democratic; and that he believes that only men who have sufficient wealth to be independent of a Parliamentary honorarium should be permitted in Parliament. To talk about the "professional politician" is to acknowledge ignorance, for no man can choose this profession with a certain chance of adopting if, and no man can continue in it without public leave. If a man is a ''professional politician" it is because the people have made the position for him. If the people don't like professional politicians, out they go; and that's all there is to it. Politicians are paid in the colonies because it would be impracticable to obtain representation without this payment. Few of our own Parliamentarians could a fiord the dubious luxury of a seat without the honorarium. To sneer at them for this is not -'cricket." To abolish payment of politicians would he to abolish complete representation. Complete representation was never conceded to British people before organised bodies paid the expenses of their candidates before and after election. The suggestion to pay members of the House of Commons only came about through the judgment in the Osborne ease, whereby organisations were debarred from paying M.P.'s from their funds. No doubt the Parliamentary dilettante with the fat rent-roll and who took to polities as a hobliy objected to the presence of real representatives of the people. Neither Britain nor her colonies are composed of independent folks. There are fewer reasons for the payment of British members than for payment of Australasian politicians, for there is no call on the British politician

to repeatedly travel, and the "Commoner" | does not find it necessary to be for ever "on the wallaby" over bush tracks and I in remote places. From our point of I view, the work of a New Zealand M.P. I is infinitely more important than the work of the British M.P., and certainly '■ more varied and strenuous. The Australasian "M.P. is invariably called upon to make sacrifices—home, social and business —that the "Commoner" (and Lord Dudley) knows nothing about. He cannot "make money" out of his job as a politician, but he can lose it. If he is a country member his honorarium mu.-t necessarily be insufficient to "see him through." There can be no doubt that country colonial M.P.'s should be paid at a higher rate than city members, who in many cases are able to carry on private business and the important business of polities at one and the same time. Lord Dudley's allegations are, by way of showing that a. man can't do a job well if he is paid for doing it.. His assertion that the people of the colonies were more engaged in making money than the English is quite irrelevant, the suggestion being that the Australian politician forces his way into Parliament in order to "make money" by gaining a small honorarium, which is absurd, especially as it comes from a man who does not have to make money jbtit lias plenty ready made and is liable to have fat sinecures thrown at him at any time Lord Denman, Go-vernor-General, lias found it necessary to say that there has been no reflection during the system of payment of members in Australia, on the honor and integrity of members of Parliament. That is to say, that because M.P.'s are comparatively poor, they have been as honest as if they had been wealthy and had taken to politics as a pastime.. The system of payment of members is absolutely sound because it permits of full representation and does not debar a man from being chosen by the people because be cannot afford the luxury. Any accusation of such a' system is an accusation of the people who permit it. Therefore the ex-Governor accuses the people whom he was so well paid to govern of permitting a system that is not nice. No one blames Australians for being a little, hurt at the allegations of a man who waited until he was well away from a hospitable country before he made them.