M.P.s Employed Abroad
Last week a second reading was given to the Bill which extends for another year the Act enabling M.P.s to retain their seats while serving in certain offices abroad. There was an air of complete unreality about the debate. A number of members affected to discern in this measure a sinister attempt on the part of the Govern- ment to fill the House with placemen and to pour out public money in bribery and corruption. Others, more moderately, were content to complain of the disfranchisement of constituencies by the absence of their members abroad. A stranger listening to. this• impassioned eloquence in the cause of purity and democracy would scarcely have imagined that the Bill limits the number of members who may be thus employed to 25, that only 20 have been listed as being overseas, that of these, as Mr. Eden showed, two-thirds are available for work in the House, and that the provision is for one year only, under conditions of war. The principle has scarcely been questioned that members should not be excluded from serving in the armed forces. Is it a very different principle that members should perform other war-time duties that may take them overseas? The war produces a great demand for the temporary services of men with special qualifications, some of whom are in Parliament; and it would be neither desirable that the Government should be unable to use them, nor fair to require them under these exceptional circumstances to give up their seats.
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