"
The same principle which demands that no payment of money for
election purposes should be either required or tolerated on the part
of the person elected dictates another conclusion, apparently of
contrary tendency, but really directed to the same object. It
negatives what has often been proposed as a means of rendering
Parliament accessible to persons of all ranks and circumstances; the
payment of members of Parliament. If, as in some of our colonies,
there are scarcely any fit persons who can afford to attend to an
unpaid occupation, the payment should be an indemnity for loss of time
or money, not a salary. The greater latitude of choice which a
salary would give is an illusory advantage. No remuneration which
any one would think of attaching to the post would attract to it those
who were seriously engaged in other lucrative professions with a
prospect of succeeding in them. The business of a member of Parliament
would therefore become an occupation in itself; carried on, like other
professions, with a view chiefly to its pecuniary returns, and under
the demoralising influences of an occupation essentially precarious.
It would become an object of desire to adventurers of a low class; and
658 persons in possession, with ten or twenty times as many in
expectancy, would be incessantly bidding to attract or retain the
suffrages of the electors, by promising all things, honest or
dishonest, possible or impossible, and rivalling each other in
pandering to the meanest feelings and most ignorant prejudices of
the vulgarest part of the crowd.
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