THE PRESTIGE OF PARLIAMENT [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
S111,—I feel most strongly the country's responsible editors should receive every possible assistance from the public, because government by discussion (Fr. partement—parliament) is the main fundamental principle of the Constitution, and in practice, but for its unofficial maintenance by them, coupled with that of the Lords, intermittently, that principle Is almost totally in abeyance now—nor can the country depend upon any adequate or genuine discussion being effected in the transactions of public affairs.
Welsh statesmanship, it seems to me, has turned the House of Commons into a den of thieves nowadays, whether Conservative muddlers, Liberal dupes, or Labour blood- suckers by profession. I wish Nottingham had shown that body what England thinks of it, say, by a general strike of voters! A 5 per cent. poll to elect its representative in that assembly would, I think, give it a smack in the eye it richly deserves!
- Really, with an excellent King, the best Second Chamber we ever had, tolerably good County Councils, and the national genius for self-government of the English, I sometimes wonder whether it would not be the best way out of our fearful difficulties, which are only becoming more acute, as it is, to suspend the House of Commons, and its costly mistress, the Civil Service, until things are tolerably straight again—say, for twenty years or so !
As wisely might we give to a financial crook sole control
of a Money Bill as the House of Commons and the Treasury nowadays, and, by rights it seems to me, it has forfeited all claim to be trusted to have anything whatever to do with the taxpayers' money for at least another twenty or thirty years What business, in common honesty, had it to give away the exhausted taxpayers' money to the United States, France, and Italy as it has done ? Sheer dishonesty and vulgar bravado, surely ! Then the Civil Service (with the Commons as its mere tool) in 1919-20 exacted more than necessary from the tortured taxpayers, by more than a whole pre-War imperial Budget--viz., £280 millions too much ! Hushed up as a trifle, and quite forgotten now.!
Then, again, in 1922-3 the Civil Service again seizes too much by £101 million. At any sacrifice, they should have made quite sure not to take more than necessary ! Too little would not have mattered so much ! How much of our present difficulties may not have originated in this wanton gash inflicted on commerce to the tune of 1.1330 million loss in two years !
Why were there only fifty-six Government Departments in London in 1913, and no fewer than eighty-three-now ?— I RID, Sir, &C., -PAULE:r S. J. MILDMAY, Manor Muse, Totktnel Bag, Isle of Wight. -
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