26 APRIL 1913, Page 28

[To TER EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—The letter of your correspondent, Mr. Eden, suggests the inquiry, "Is it reasonable to expect that the status long associated in the public view with membership of the House of Commons can remain unaltered now that the payment of members has been introduced?" Mr. Gladstone would have answered this question with a very decided negative. Lord Morley quotes him as saying in a Parliamentary debate, when referring to the effect of State subsidies on legislators, "For my part I trust that of all the changes that may in the course of generations be made in the Constitution of this country, the very last and latest will be the payment of members of this House" (Morley's "Life of Gladstone," voL i. p. 611).—I am,