has so often proved itself open to conviction as has the House of Commons. But I should say that to secure this end it would need a tussle quite as prolonged and as violent as has raged round Home Rule. Lowering and widening the suffrage has done much to alter the personal standard of the House of Commons. Nothing achieved through these sixty years would in its modifying effect equal the potency of the change wrought by paying members.
"A personal standard."
One illustration is found in the assertion, made with confidence, that under such a system the House would know no more men of the type of Sir Walter Barttelot. He was not the highest form of capacity, knowledge, or intelligence. But he was of the kind that gives to the House of Commons the lofty tone it speedily regains even after a paroxysm of post-prandial passion. The House of Commons is unique in many ways. I believe the main foundation of the position it holds among the Parliaments of the world is this condition of volunteered unremunerated service.
In spite of sneers from disappointed or flippant persons, a seat in the House of Commons still remains one of the highest prizes of citizen life. When membership becomes a business, bringing in say £6 a week, the charm will be gone. As things stand, there is reason why any constituency desiring to do so may not return a member on the terms of paying him a salary. It is done in several cases, in two at least with the happiest results. It would be a different thing to throw the whole place open with standing advertisement for eligible members at a salary of £300 a year, paid quarterly. The horde of impecunious babblers and busybodies attracted by such a bait would trample down the class of men who compose the present House of Commons, and who are, in various ways, at touch with all the multiform interests of the nation.
A surprise.
HATS AND SEATS. The great hat question which agitated the House of Commons at the commencement of the new Session, even placing Home Rule in a secondary position, has subsided, and will probably not again be heard of during the existence of the present Parliament. Whilst yet to the fore it was discussed with vigour and freshness; but it is no new thing. With the opening Session of every Parliament the activity and curiosity of new members lead to inconvenient crowding of a chamber that was not constructed to seat 670 members. In the early days of the 1880 Parliament the hat threatened to bring about a crisis. One evening Mr. Mitchell Henry startled the House by addressing the Speaker from a side gallery. This of itself was regarded as a breach of order, and many members expected the Speaker would peremptorily interfere. But Mr. Mitchell Henry, an old Parliamentary hand, knew he was within his right in speaking from this unwonted position. The side galleries as far down as the Bar are as much within the House as is the Treasury Bench, and though orators frequenting them would naturally find a difficulty in catching the Speaker's eye, there is no other reason
