one in these once august precincts. (Cheers.) Now to come to the remedy. He contended that there was no better way to impress on Parliament the stamp of earnestness than by instituting paid delegates in place of unpaid deputies. Our old deputy system was getting worn out—it was an anachronism. Formerly the two Houses of Parliament really represented the legislative intelligence of the country. Hodge and ’Arry were then content to vote at elections just as they were bid or bribed, and to leave politics in the hands of that oligarchy which they had been bred up to regard as a superior order of beings. Education was then an expensive luxury, and was tacitly looked upon as the privilege of a caste. Now all that was changed. The cheap press and the forcing school had made politics common property, and disposed nine people out of ten to have an opinion of their own on the questions of the day. Public opinion no longer meant, as it did once, the hooraying or hooting of an ignorant mob; it had become a subtle, sensitive, and, in the last resort, irresistible power. This being so, the representative deputy was out of place. He had comparatively carte blanche, his parliamentary action was at his own discretion, and he could at any time retort against reproaches from his constituents that he was not paid for his services, but, on the contrary, put to heavy expense to render them. The constituency was thus in a false position, feeling it awkward to call its deputy representative to account, except in extreme cases. Now the paid delegate would be differently situated altogether. His instructions upon every important question would be clear and concise, and if he took liberties, he would be liable to ejection from his seat with as little ceremony as a defaulting clerk. An assembly composed of such delegates would feel in no metaphysical way that it was trustee for the public time and money, and that it could be very shortly and sharply hauled up if it abused its trust. (Hear.)
