AN ANCIENT CUSTOM.
; The payment of members' of Parliament, now a political question of im:portance in Great Britain, was the custom of .the kingdom 1 in some past centuries. The peers always attended the meetings of Parliament at their own expense, as one^of the duties 'they owed to tne Grown, but as soon as the Lower House came into existence ■orders were issued .that 'the selected .representatives should be paid salaries by their constituencies. The amount payable was rather vague, but in die reign of Edward 111 the Court decided .that 4s a day for a knight of 'the shire and 2s a.,day for a citizen or burgess should be the standard allowance. The amounts were not insignificant, as 4s in the values of 'that period were about equal to £2 to-day, and the session sometimes occupied naif a year. Some boroughs seem 'to have viewed the necessity of paying members of Parliament as an irksome
obligation. The records show that in the fourteenth century the corporation of Canterbury cut down the wages oi : its representative 'to Is a day, and hi 1463 Dunwich induced Six John Strange to accept "a rode and half a barrel of herrings" as his fee.. ln 1610 Sir Robert Hitchman offered to -represent King's Lynn free of charge, and his offer was "gratefully accepted." The old custom was more honoured in the breach than in 'the observance after the Restoration. Pepys relates thar he dined in the Ciy on March 30, 1683, "with many men of mark" ; that he got into conversation with the rest of the company on State affairs, and 'that "all concluded that the bane of Parliament had been the leaving off the old custom of the places, allowing
wages to those that served them in
Parliament, by, which they chose men that understood their business and would attend to it, and they could expect an account from them which now they cannot." It is held by some legai authorities that the old obligation of the constituencies to pay wages still exits in Britain, but probably successive Reform Acts have so changed N the position of affairs that an attempt on the part of a member to recover by legal process would have little- chance of success.
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Grey River Argus, 24 November 1910, Page 8
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376AN ANCIENT CUSTOM. Grey River Argus, 24 November 1910, Page 8
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