Wanganui Chronicle AND PATRA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." FRIDAY, DEC. 11, 1885.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 11049, 11 December 1885, Page 2

Wanganui Chronicle AND PATRA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." FRIDAY, DEC. 11, 1885.

A New Zealand colonist of six years' standing has written a letter to the Sheffield Independent, expressing anything but complimentary opinions about the public men of the colony. He remarks : " Every member of the Houße of Representatives is paid £200 and travelling expenses, besides ' pickings,' for the work of ten or twelve weeks' session, said work mainly consisting of intriguing to get himself and party into place, and the Ministry turnod out. Eaoh Cabinet Minister — many of. them most needy and uneducated men — receives £1250 a year besides a residence and allowances, the Premier getting £1750, etc. ! Our Civil Service also is frightfully costly and stuffed with in* competent plaoemen, the friends and relatives of the ' Ins,' or those who hope to be 'in,' I wish you joy of paid M.P.'s. iuother lesson I nave learned in New Zealand is the insanity of expecting to remedy poverty or improve the condition of the masses by allotting them small landed properties. Even au experienced farmer with small capital, or capital borrowed at high interest — here in New Zealand it is 8 or 10 per cent. — cannot make anything but a bare living on a smaH farm, often not that even. A man knowing little or nothing of farming is only too likely to lose what little capital he may invest." Whether the writ >r of the above remarks is 'a disappointed colonist, whose views of things general'y are tinged by his own failure, or whether he is a veracious writer who simply gives tc his friends at a distance views of things colonial as they present themselves to his own mind, we cannot divine. But this we do know — that, intentionally or not, he greatly misrepresents the Raw Zealand House of Eepresentatives and its Ministerial Cabinet. He sneers at the £200 a year which members receive as honoraiium, and says that they get " pickings " in addition. First, with regard to the honorarium. We hava always felt that we would rather see the amount reduced than inoreased, but with ua it has ever been a, question of amount merely, and not of principle, as we consider that in a colony like this I it is only right the members should atleast receive suflioient to cover actual expenses. Let any man go over the list of members of the present House of Representatives, and mark off the men to whom he thinks it is a matter of clear gain to receive 200 guineas is remuneration for three months' enforced reeidence ii Wellington. He wiU find that tlae great mass of the members are either settlers or men of business, who lose rmioh more than they gain by snch a long period of absence from the personal oversight of their business affairs. As a matter of fact, a great many good men throughout the colony regularly decline to stand at every general election because they cannot afford to make the saorifice that absence from business to attend the sittings of Parliament would necessarily involve. There may, of course, be haH-a*dozen men in the House to whom the honorarium is a consideration, but we are not called upon to discuss the exceptions. What has really tobe guarded againstisanyattempt to so largely increase the honorarium as Co make seats in the House objects of at* ttiotion to adventurers. The " pickings," of which members of the House of .Representatives get the benefit, are not generally of a very substantial nature, so far as we hava ever heard- v Indeed, they usually combine benefits ..to the district and honours to the member's friends rather than any particular advantage to the pocket of tho representative bimseif- As for the salaries -of- Ga&Ecfc Ministers, nobody will for a moment consider them too large who remembers what is paid to the heads of large mercantile institutions in the oolony. The sneer at the neediness and lack of education of colonial Ministers is entirely uncalled for. If we take the present Government— with many things in the polioy and administration of which we are not at at all in accord — nobody oan deny that its leading members are men of marked ability, unflagging industry, and of education wider and more useful than would suffice for a university test. What may be termed the "tail" of the Ministry consists of nvscativ iusi'ueas men, of -toicrtiiucation, and in comfortable circumstances, to whom the position they oooupy — • save for the dis« tingulshed position it gives them — oan be no very great consideration, Bead by people at a distance, the letter of the New Zealand colonist, from which we have quoted the extraot given above, would lead to the belief that the Government of this colony is largely made tip of ignorant boors, and that the members of Parliament are utterly dovoid of honour or honesty, who simply value their seats in the Legislature for wnat they oan make out of them- This, to our mind, is a gross libel, as applied to the House and the Cabinet generally, however it may fit in particular in* stances. __________