Woes Of An M.P.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 180, 23 October 1903, Page 3

Woes Of An M.P.

The ingenuity displayed by applicants to members of Parliament for money is positively appalling-. These are divided into two classes — applicants who appeal on behalf of religious, sporting ch-uit-able, and convivial institutions ; and impecunious individuals who eloquently advance their own claims on the M.P.'s purse. " I received last year five hundred applications for assistance from various inatitutions in my constituency," confessed a member recently ; which, he added, was altogether apart from ordinary begging letters. It ia not at all uncommon for a member to receive an appeal from a constituent begging him to obtain the discharge of a runaway son from the Army. A popular Service member was honoured with an epistle of this kind, which is probably unique: — " I am one of your staunchesfc supporters," said the writer, " and ray son i? like his father. But in the shop where he was employed most of '.he men were on the other side, and they worried him so that he ran away, and ioined the Army. Will you please help me to get him out?" The cumber of martyrs for their political convictions in this country must be colossal, judging from the appeals that reach the elect of the nation at Westminster. There are M.P.'s who spend as much £3000 a year on their seatß. Others are content to allow tlmr claims to Parliamentary honours to rest on their political work. But it must be admitted the latter class are in n pma'.l minority. And if th<-re are M.P.'a who hold their by the aid of their monpy-bags, there are also constituencies notorions for their mendicancy. A n M P. who rapresented a west country constituency, in planking down 3£5 notes on the counter of the House of Commons Poat Office for fifteen postal ordors of £1, remarked to a friend with whrm he was conversing, " These are in reply to bpgaing letters. It's the same thing every wef k." His was one of the seats (hat experienced Parliamentarians mentally inscribe on their black list. Raw hands only discover the grasping proclivities of the" free and independent" in such constituencies after they have been declared " fit and proper persons " to become candidates.