At this time of writing there is talk in the House about payment of
members. A private member has placed on the paper a resolution affirming
the desirability of adopting the principle, and it is even said--(which
I take leave to doubt)--that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a card
up his sleeve intended to win this game. It would be rash to predict
stubborn resistance on the part of a body that has so often proved
itself open to conviction as has the House of Commons. But I should say
that to secure this end it would need a tussle quite as prolonged and as
violent as has raged round Home Rule. Lowering and widening the suffrage
has done much to alter the personal standard of the House of Commons.
Nothing achieved through these sixty years would in its modifying effect
equal the potency of the change wrought by paying members.
[Illustration: "A PERSONAL STANDARD."]
One illustration is found in the assertion, made with confidence, that
under such a system the House would know no more men of the type of Sir
Walter Barttelot. He was not the highest form of capacity, knowledge, or
intelligence. But he was of the kind that gives to the House of Commons
the lofty tone it speedily regains even after a paroxysm of
post-prandial passion. The House of Commons is unique in many ways. I
believe the main foundation of the position it holds among the
Parliaments of the world is this condition of volunteered unremunerated
service.
In spite of sneers from disappointed or flippant persons, a seat in the
House of Commons still remains one of the highest prizes of citizen
life. When membership becomes a business, bringing in say L6 a week, the
charm will be gone. As things stand, there is no reason why any
constituency desiring to do so may not return a member on the terms of
paying him a salary. It is done in several cases, in two at least with
the happiest results. It would be a different thing to throw the whole
place open with standing advertisement for eligible members at a salary
of, L300 a year, paid quarterly. The horde of impecunious babblers and
busybodies attracted by such a bait would trample down the class of men
who compose the present House of Commons, and who are, in various ways,
at touch with all the multiform interests of the nation.
[Illustration: A SURPRISE.]