By Earl Moxam Snr., Gleaner Writer 
Glasspole (left) and Bustamante (right)
APRIL 26, 1945 marked what may have been the first occasion that the contentious question of compensation for parliamentarians was raised under Universal Adult Suffrage. The pioneering MPs, elected in December 1944, had only been in office for four months, having entered Parliament on January 9, 1945, when the matter of their salaries took centre stage in the chamber at Headquarters House.
It was Harold Allan, Independent Member from Portland Eastern, who asked the House of Representatives to ap-prove a motion, contained in a message from the Governor, setting out the proposed salary for MPs in the sum of 550 pounds per year. This would mark a fairly substantial increase over the existing pay of 400 pounds per annum. The resolution was seconded by Alexander Bustamante, but it did not meet with universal acclaim. Independent Member, the Rev. Reginald Phillips from Clarendon North Eastern, informed the House that as much as he was grateful to the Government for having granted the increase, his conscience would not allow him to support it.
"Will it bear out the promise we made at election time? Will it help to heighten the confidence of the public in us? I, for my part, would welcome £1,000 a year in addition, but I would have to see a horn of plenty first, and I do not see that horn of plenty. And it is for that reason I fear the repercussion may be against us later on," he warned.
Alexander Bustamante was not swayed by the utterances of the Rev. Mr. Phillips. That member, he said, reminded him of "the parson who said: 'Thou dost not need gold nor silver', but at the same time he hands out the collection plate!" He accused Phillips of merely playing to the gallery and misleading the public on the matter. Declaring that he had the courage of his conviction, he asserted that "the paltry sum the Government allows the MHRs should not at any time have been allowed, and more consideration should be given to the elected members."
OPPOSITION TO INCREASE
Florizel Glasspole, leading the Opposition charge in the Lower House, was next in line to comment on the matter, and he made it clear from the outset that he was opposed to the increase. He likened the Jamaican electorate to shareholders in a limited liability company whose duty it was to elect directors to manage the affairs of that company.
He therefore painted the following scenario: "We elect our directors to the company... they were elected at £400 per annum and the moment they are elected they say this is too much work for the £400 we shall make the salary £550, before doing any work at all. I am certain, Sir, that if we here were shareholders in such a company and any director or group of directors acted in that manner we would throw up our hands and say what an avaricious, rapacious lot of people are directors of the company!"
Lester Simmonds, JLP member for St. Mary, Western, asked sarcastically, "Any other adjectives?"
Neither was the JLP's Clement Aitcheson from North Trelawny impressed by Glasspole's robust arguments. While claiming not to impute motives to Glasspole, he said he failed "to understand... the type of sincerity which a member has when he stands up and opposes increased emoluments to himself, when he knows that the present emoluments are wholly inadequate. I say I place my own construction on his sincerity, and I feel also the public is not at all fooled by it, and the public will not believe it."
CHALLENGE THROWN OUT
In closing, Aitcheson threw out a challenge to the parliamentary Opposition: "If they are sincere in what they say, if the forensic speech of the last speaker is sincere and genuine, I call upon him to reject the personal emoluments to be paid to him, and let those others who asked for it and who feel they cannot go along without it, accept it; and then I shall be the first one to congratulate him as a man who stands by his convictions, and not a man who is only playing to the gallery."
Fred L'Overture Barca Evans (FLB Evans) of Westmoreland Eastern was the first to take up that challenge. Laying claim to the title "the poorest one in this Council", he declared his intention to reject the increase.
Continuing, 'Slave Boy' Evans declared, "Mr. Speaker, I know the worst of this country because I am from the rock bottom of it, and if this is our first representative move as a progressive legislature of this country, we are dooming it under a dark and bitter cloud."
Aitcheson rose on a point of order to point out that the salary of Members of the House had not been fixed prior to the election. It was, he said, for the House, once elected, to fix the salary. Accordingly, he said £400 had only been a tentative arrangement. Undaunted, Evans resumed his line of argument, comparing members of the House to Shakespeare's Shylock.
HONEST, SINCERE SERVICE
But, he said, while Shylock demanded flesh for what was borrowed from him... "We promised to give these people honest and sincere service, and as one from the masses of this country a slave are we to go back to the slaves my brother and sister slaves and drink the blood from their breasts?" "It is wrong!" he thundered, "and lest it be measured against us, I hope that this House will vote against it!"
Frank Pixley (JLP Central Kingston) was scathing in his dismissal of the arguments of those opposed to the salary increase. Instead he called on the members to be "reasonable, sane, thinking people, with integrity of purpose and honesty to serve the people of this country, stop these parochial political expressions in this House and have a broader sense of the future of this country."
To buttress his support for the salary increase, Pixley asked rhetorically: "Does any well thinking member of this House feel he should be beneath the rank of a senior clerk in the Government service or a principal clerk?"
A first class clerk in the Government Service, he said, enjoyed a salary of £475 the minimum; senior clerk £600; and a principal clerk £650 to £700. Having presented those figures he then asked his colleagues: "Does this House feel they should be in an inferior position? They are not bound to work overtime. We and those members of this House who intend to serve the people must make up their minds to sacrifice their time, sacrifice their life for the prosperity of this country."
In the end, the arguments of those supporting the resolution held sway and the measure was approved by the House.
