PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 231, 29 September 1910, Page 4

PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

One natural effect of the controversy' over tho Osborne case at Home has been that a great deal of attention is now i being given to the question of paying members of Parliament. We could hardly expect that in a country like England, where Conservatism is a national instinct rather than a political creed, this highly democratic doctrine could have made much headway yet. It is over seventy years since the Chartists first included payment for members among the famous "six points" in their programme, but until tlie Osborne judg ment was delivered, the demand for this reform was little more than a pious aspiration. Now, however, the signs of the times are changing rapidly. For, on the one hand, the workers are realism" 'that if they may not use their savings' to pay their representatives in the House of Commons, tbey cannot hope to get members of their own class into Parliament; and, on the other hand, tho two great political parties, seeing that "payment for members" is likely to become a popular cry, are beginning to coquette with the idea themselves. It is significant that the "Daily Express," while regarding the system as open to grave objection, is prepared to support it as "the lesser of two evils." But tie most remarkable indication of a qoming change in tbe conversion of Mr. F. E Smith, perhaps the most distinguished of the-younger Unionists, to r the belief that " payment for members " must come, and that speedily. It is true that Mr. Smith's change of front is ingeniously excused by the plea that, as the Socialists •have got control of the Labour organisartions, workers are now liable to. be excluded from the unions, and robbed of their livelihood, unless they will bind themselves to support a political programme that they do not approve. But jwe believe that the " Manchester' Guardian " gets near the truth when it sees in Mr. Smith's new propaganda a desperate attempt to revive the "Tory Democracy " of Disraeli and Ilandolph Churchill, and to undermine the Liberals by representing to the workers that the Unionists are, after all, their best friends. It would, indeed, be a curious outcome of this quarrel over the allocation of union funds if the Osfborne judgment should supply Mr. Balfour and the Opposition with an. opportunity for "dishing the Whigs" once more, and the resurrection of the " Tory Democracy" of thirty years ago should for the moment bring the Liberal domination to a close.