The Mother of Parliaments. Graham Harry

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in spite of the democratic tendency of modern political thought, the House of Commons still remains in large measure a delegation of the richest if not perhaps of the most aristocratic class in England. This state of things is likely to continue unless some system is adopted of remunerating the services of legislators in the fashion which long prevailed in England and is still in vogue upon the Continent. But it is certainly open to argument whether its adoption would improve the quality of the House or the respect entertained for it in the country.

      In the Parliaments of Edward III. members received regular payment, the wages varying from year to year. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, for example, the knights of Dorsetshire were paid 5s. a day; later on this was reduced to 1s. 6d. In 1314 the daily wage of county members was 4s., and they were also allowed a small sum to cover travelling expenses. In Henry VIII.'s reign boroughs were expected to pay their own members' expenses. Frugal constituencies occasionally bargained with their would-be representatives, and candidates, stimulated to generous impulses by the idea of imminent election, would agree to defray their own expenses or even to go without wages altogether. Sometimes, too, members appear to have been willing to pay for the privilege of election. In 1571 a certain Thomas Long was returned for the Wiltshire borough of Westbury by the simple process of paying the mayor a sum of £4. Long's unfitness for a seat in Parliament – he was a simple yeoman – became apparent as soon as he entered the House. On being questioned, he admitted having bribed the constituency to elect him, and was at once informed that the House had no further need of his services. The inhabitants of Westbury were fined £20, and the Mayor was compelled to refund his money.64

      The practice of paying members long continued. In the year 1586 we find the member for Grantham suing the borough for his salary. The House of Commons does not, however, appear to have been anxious to uphold this claim, and requested that it should be withdrawn. By this time, indeed, it had become usual for members to forego the financial advantages of election – though there still remained some notable exceptions who were not satisfied with the honorary rewards attaching to the possession of a seat in Parliament – and in 1677 the Commons repealed the Statute by which wages were paid to members.65

      Samuel Pepys deplored the gradual neglect of the old practice requiring constituencies to allow wages to their representatives, whereby, he said, "they chose men that understood their business and would attend it, and they could expect an account from, which now they cannot."66 But this view was not the popular one, and electors gladly availed themselves of the change in public opinion to discontinue the earlier system. Motions have been brought forward on more than one occasion, "to restore the ancient constitutional custom of payment of members," – notably in 1870 and 1888 – but have always been rejected by a large majority.67 Nowadays, however, there seems some inclination to revert to the old-fashioned and more expensive method, and within recent years a Liberal Prime Minister has promised to provide payment for members whenever funds for the purpose are available. In other respects the desire of the member of Parliament today would appear to be rather in the direction of relinquishing than of adding to his personal privileges. In the eighteenth century, for example, he would never have dreamt of paying postal fees. Members transmitted their correspondence without charge by the simple process of inscribing their names in one corner of the envelope. The privilege of "franking," as this was called, was afterwards limited by its being required that the date and place of posting should be added in the member's handwriting, and the daily number of free letters was restricted to ten sent and fifteen received. In those free and easy days kind-hearted members would provide their friends with large bundles of franked half-sheets of paper, and the number of persons who paid any postage on their correspondence two hundred years ago must have been very small indeed. In a letter written by Mrs. Delany to a friend in 1749 we find the subject mentioned in a way that shows how universally available had become such opportunities for defrauding the revenue. "I have been so silly as to forget franks," she writes. "I must beg the favour of you to get a dozen or two for me from Sir Charles Mordaunt… I don't know," she adds, "but you will find a few of the Duke of Portland's in the drawer with the paper."68

      By the end of the eighteenth century the improper franking of letters threatened to become a public scandal. Covers were transmitted by the hundred, packed in boxes, the only limit to their distribution being the good nature of members. A London banker once received thirty-three covers containing garden seeds from a Scottish member, and it became apparent to the postal authorities that some effort must be made to put a stop to the practice.69 This was eventually done in 1840, not without a struggle, and the modern member of Parliament who writes letters to his friends must do so at his own expense. He is still, however, allowed to send a certain number of printed copies of bills to his constituents, free of charge, by writing his name in a corner of the packet.

      To-day the privileges of membership are certainly not of a material kind. A few men enter the House of Commons for social purposes, and must be sadly disappointed in the result. The simple letters, "M.P." on a card are indeed no longer, as the author of that entertaining work, "Men and Manners in Parliament," declared them to be thirty years ago, "the surest passport to distinction for mediocrity travelling on the continent."70 Bitter experience has shattered the simple faith in human nature which was once the chief charm of the Swiss innkeeper. The sight of a British member of Parliament signing a cheque no longer inspires him with confidence. He is only too well aware that among those —

      "Types of the elements whose glorious strife

      Form'd this free England, and still guard her life,"

      there exist a few who are not above leaving their hotel bills permanently unpaid; and this knowledge has endowed him with a caution which is both galling to the sensitive soul of the average M.P. and extremely inconvenient to the tourist who has momentarily mislaid his letter of credit.

      If the member cannot now enjoy the unmixed respect of the foreigner, it is equally certain that at home he is no longer looked upon with the veneration with which his predecessors were commonly regarded. His constituents treat him as their servant no less than as their representative. And though he may find some comfort in that definition of a member's duties for which Edmund Burke is responsible – which perhaps cost that statesman his seat at the General Election of 1780 – this will prove but a slight consolation when he is suddenly called upon by his local committee to explain some change of views or to account for constant neglect of his parliamentary duties.

      Parliament is not, indeed, as Burke told the electors of Bristol, a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates. It is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. "You choose a member indeed," he said; "but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament."71 At the same time a member cannot afford to forget that he owes much to his constituents; his existence in Parliament depends very greatly upon their good pleasure. He must be to a certain extent at their beck and call, willing to subscribe to their local charities, to open their bazaars, visit their hospitals, kick off at their football matches, take the chair at their farmers' dinners or smoking-concerts. He must have a welcome hand ever extended in the direction of the squire, a smile for the licensed victualler, a kindly nod of the head for the meanest elector, and (at election times) a kiss for the humblest voter's stickiest child. When constituents call upon him at the House he must greet them with a display of effusiveness which gives no hint of his annoyance at being interrupted in the middle of important business. They may want to be shown round the House, and such a natural desire on their part must be acquiesced in, though it is not every one who has the courage to escort a band of six hundred constituents round the Chamber, as did a member in 1883. Every morning the postman will bring him – besides that voluminous bundle of parliamentary papers

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