The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-22
Payment Of Members
by State
CIVIL SERVICE
Questions for Candidates
for Irish Police.

VIII NC oldTleu LOT the aDOl1tl0n oil the
present time honored system of nom
payment of members of the British
parliament. Public opinion was turned
IN that direction years ago by the radi-
cal press, but the agitation lacked lead
ership and organization, and conse-
quently was ineffective.
To require SO men, representing Eng
land, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to
give up their business, leave their fam
lilies, and go to London to live for six
months of the year. without one penny
of salary or expense allowance, must
seem to the American mind an extra
ordinary imposition by the state, ac-
customed, as Americans are, to the
payment of reasonable sums for salar-
les and expenses to their public repre-
sentatives. Yet such unrequited SER
vice is precisely what the British par
lament exacts from its members, and
has eXacted since the days of the Bar
ons of Eunnymede.
The system has made the House of
Commons a first-class club. In fact
it is regarded as the first club of Lon
don, and rich men and rich mems sons
are willing to swallow any dose of vul-
gar electioneering that may be neces-
sary for their return to the exclusive
assembly at Westminster.
Between elections this odious famil-
arity with the masses is not to be
thought of by the patrician M. P. To be
sure, he goes down. to the country
once or twice a year, perhaps a little
oftener if the parliament be nearing it's
dissolution. and addresses his faithful
and admiring constituents on the is
sues of the day. That, of course, is
necessary and unavoidable if the men,
Der would keep in touch with the
voters. But the details of those gath
erings are carefully looked after by his
local solicitor, who has everything ready
for the spontaneous demonstration of
welcome by the time the member ar
rives at the railway station. The NJ. P.
delivers his speech, which appears YER
batim next morning in the local press,
plentifully interspersed with hear
hear, loud and prolonged applause"
and great cheering as the honorable
gentleman resumed his seat, having
spoken for one hour and fifteen min
utes." After the meeting he takes the
night mail back to London, leaving his
loyal attorney to wind up the festivi-
ties.
This type of member-and he repre-
sents the great majority-is a man of
large private income, derived either
from agricultural rentals, city real es-
tate, or the profits of a mine or some
great industry; quite often he is an
affiuent lawyer with an eye open for
promotion to the ermine.
There has crept into the house of
commons, however, within the past 20
years, a type of member that is alto
gether different from the one I have
just described. He is the radical mem
oer the representative of the great
democracy, the spokesman of the
trades unions, and the mining fedora
tions.
Take him as a whole, he is a splen-
did type of public man. Robust in
body vigorous in intellect, plain, out
spoken and honest in debate, true as
the polar star to the compass in the
assertion and defense of his principles,
the British radical member has made
his place permanent in the halls of
parliament.
But the radicals are nearly all poor
men. How do they stay in London
when they have no salary or expense
allowance from the treasury? They
subsist in London on the salary paid
them by their constituents and
which are made up by pop
large, usually not more than $3.50
or $1,000 a year. But it forms the base
of their subsistence. An appointment
on some special commission or COM
mittee will bring an additional income,
but the majority have to live on the
salary raised for them every year by
their constituents, reinforced by what
few may make out of writing for the
press.
Fully so of the Sc Irish nationalist
members have had to be supported in
parliament out of the popular purse for
the last Is years. An allowance of 5000
each had to be made out of the Land
league and home rule funds, or those
men could not remain in parliament,
away for half the year from family and
business. and the allowance was bare
ly sufficient to meet the plainest living
| expenses.
How those members are to be paid
now when popular interest in America
and Australia has been chilled almost
out of existence by the dissensions of
the Irish leaders, and the party
eXchequer dependent almost who'll
ly on subscriptions in Ireland alone
is a serious question. Fifty thousand
dollars a year is hard sum to collect.
when the much-worked public ear is
not as sensitive as of yore to the an
peal
But, there is no question that mem
bers of parliament with be paid by the
!
cratic members of both houses will, of
course, resist the innovation as strong
~ as they are able being anxious to
preserve the tone of parliament.
| Their opposition, however, will be as
ineffectual as that of old King Canute
when he sat on the beach and COM
manded the waves of the rising tide not
to wet his imperial feet. The tide of
democracy in Britain is steadily ris-
ing year by year, and while royalty
as an institution may rest secure for
generations TO come on its well chosen
rock of non-interference in political af-
fairs still the signs of the times point
Enthusiastically towards the destruction
of many a citadel of class, and among
the first to fall will be that which
bars Lazarus from the nations senate,
while Dives is welcomed in.
Those who are interested in civil SER
vice affairs, may read with profit the
following series of questions contained
in papers of examination for the Royal
Irish Constabulary as recently pub
lished in Dublin:
GEOGRAPHY.
/. Draw a map of the part Of Eng
land lying south of a straight line down
from London to Bristol, marking the
county boundaries, two towns in each
county rivers, bays and headlands
2. Describe a railway journey from
ca Cardiff TO London:
CD Holyhead to Liverpool
3. Give full description of Glamor-
ganshire and Pembrokeshire.
4. Describe fully the courses of the
Thames, Mersey, and Great Ouse.
b. What do you know of Dunnet
Head, Stoir Point, Tarbet Ness, Sanda,
South Uist, Valley OF Glenmore, Long
Forties, Portsoy, Spey ana Ventnor?
8. Where are the following towns,
and for what are they temarkab -