21 MAY 1921, Page 3

It is not as though the poorer members would be

very much helped by the remission of Income Tax. The tax they pay on their salaries is small. Moreover, most of them draw support From their trade union funds, and some of them actually pay their salaries into those funds only to draw it out again under

another name, and probably with additions. There has always been an exaggerated idea that Labour people were very strongly in favour of payment of members and that it ought to be granted in justice to them, in order that any man with the necessary brains and capacity might be enabled to sit in Par- liament. But, as a matter of fact, many unions would prefer that their representatives in Parliament should draw only union pay. The Member of Parliament would then be more thoroughly the servant of the union.