THE UNIONIST PARTY AND THE PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—You urge the leaders of the Unionist Party to declare promptly that they are resolutely opposed to the system of payment of members out of the public exchequer, and that they will put an end to it immediately they come into power. You are well warranted in this, since the position of the party in regard to the question is far from being as well defined as it ought to be. It is true that the last annual conference of the National Union passed without a dissentient voice a. resolution in favour of ceasing to pay members. But the circumstances in which it was passed deprived it of much of the weight that it would otherwise have had. The resolution was placed low down in the agenda—so low down indeed that but for the prompt intervention of two or three delegates the conference would have ended before this most important item in the programme had been reached. It was rescued only at the last moment, though nothing could have been more cordial than the vote in its favour which was passed by a very numerous assembly. But there was not a word of discus- sion, and I submit that though this summary procedure may be good enough for a Radical House of Commons engaged in smashing the Constitution, breaking up the United Kingdom, or confiscating the endowments of a Church, it necessarily deprived the resolution of much of the authority that a deliberate and reasoned pronouncement of the con- victions of the party would have carried with it. Daily experience of political work in a large mining and agri- cultural constituency convinces me that there are few acts of the present Government which have provoked more dissatis- faction amongst the working classes than the resolution by
means of which it invited its followers to vote themselves a round £2,000 a piece for the statutory term of a Parliament. But it is enough to look at the matter as you have done from the standpoint, not of electioneering, but of public rectitude. We are called upon to do all we can to bring back something of the wholesomeness that our political life has lost through recent happenings. Can we do anything in that direction that would be half so effective as the reversal of a step by which, as you say with. perfectly just severity, Radical Members of Parliament "abused their . powers for their
own private benefit " P—I am, Sir, &c., T. J. BENNETT. Harwarton, Speldhurst, Kent.
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