Note (Back) — Chapter VI

134. Payment of Members of the Commons.—Until recently the fact that there was no salary attached to service in Parliament operated to debar from election to the Commons men who were not of independent means. Through some years the Labor Party was accustomed to provide funds wherewith its representatives were enabled to maintain themselves at the capital,[184] but this arrangement affected only a small group of members and was of an entirely private and casual nature. Public and systematic payment of members, to the end that poor but capable men might not be kept out of the Commons, was demanded by the Chartists three-quarters of a century ago, and from time to time after 1870 there was agitation in behalf of such a policy. In 1893, and again in 1895, a resolution in favor of the payment of members was adopted in the Commons, and March 7, 1906, a resolution was carried to the effect that every member should be paid a salary of £300 annually. But it was not until 1911 that a measure of the kind could be got through the upper chamber. Fresh impetus was afforded by the Osborne Judgment, in which, on an appeal from the lower courts, the House of Lords ruled in December, 1909, that the payment of parliamentary members as such from the dues collected by labor organizations was contrary to law. The announcement of the Judgment was followed by persistent agitation for legislation to reverse the ruling. In connection with the budget presented to the Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer May 16, 1911, the proposition was made, not to take action one way or the other upon the Lords' decision, but to provide for the payment to all non-official members of the House of Commons of a yearly salary of £400; and with little delay and no great amount of opposition the proposal was enacted into law. The amount of the salary provided is not large, but it is ample to render candidacy for seats possible for numbers of men who formerly could not under any circumstances have contemplated a public career.[185]