Last year the members of the United States' Congress, taking
into consideration rising prices, and so forth, passed a law doubling the salaries of the President and of the Judged of the Supreme Court, and adding 50 per cent. to their own, with some new arrangement about mileage which makes the extent of their own gain to us at least a little uncertain. They also voted that these allowances should begin from the beginning of Congress, —that is, should include back pay for two years. The electors were profoundly irritated by this last clause—which, indeed, annoyed many of the Members themselves—compelled most of their representatives to pay back the money, dismissed an extraordinary number of members, so that more than half the House of Representatives is new, and so alarmed the remainder that Congress as its first act has repealed the law, except as regards the President, whose salary cannot be decreased while in office. American feeling appears to be unanimous on the subject; and indeed the vote of back-pay is, as they call it, "a mere steal," but on the general matter we side with the Representatives. Never pay your representatives if you can avoid it, for trading politicians are public nuisances ; but if you must pay them, pay them higher than any other civil servants what- ever, till they do not want to steal. Every day, however, increases the evidence in favour of the former plan, which is not unjust, inasmuch as any constituency, either in America or in England, can give its member a salary if it likes.
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