The surmise that under cover of enthusiasm for Governor Darling some members of the Assembly masked their advance to the principle that by their sole vote they might help themselves at will from the Treasury was no vain imagination. It was to become a portentous fact. The unreflecting who deemed that payment of Members of Parliament was not in itself popular, flattered themselves that if the question should become crucial the seekers of payment would be rejected at the poll. It was not foreseen that the utility of a member to those who secured his election would bind them to him for general uses, although they might not be solicitous concerning payment of members. So far as public opinion on the question had been tested on a cognate principle, it was adverse to payment. The municipal law had provided that the first meeting of householders and landowners in a district should decide whether the municipal councillors “shall or shall not receive any pecuniary compensation.” Throughout the whole territory, as year by year municipalities had been formed, this question had been decided in the negative. There was one important difference as to application of the principle. Municipalities would have had to pay their members out of local funds as Members of Parliament once were paid in England. In the colony the Treasury was to be sacked. If a member would sometimes rifle it on behoof of his constituents they would allow him to rifle it for his own.