SCIENTIFIC PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 375 



time, returned under our present methods of election. It 

 may well be that this would not be an altogether undesirable 

 result. There will be much difference of opinion as to the 

 11 manner in which the costs of elections should be borne," 

 but it is probable that all parties may agree that Returning 

 Officers' fees, at any rate, should be borne by the State. The 

 question as to whether it may not be desirable to discontinue 

 payment of members, on the understanding that the State 

 shall bear the whole burden of all legitimate election expenses, 

 is worthy of careful consideration. No reform of our methods 

 of election can be complete or satisfactory which does not 

 provide for the recording and counting of the votes of absent 

 electors such as fishermen and other persons who, when follow- 

 ing their callings, are under our present system frequently 

 disfranchised. 



Though the value attaching to the Report of the Speaker's 

 Conference may be small, its chief interest must be the indica- 

 tion it gives as to how far any general agreement, among 

 members of different parties, is possible on matters which 

 have in the past been the subject of acute and sometimes 

 acrimonious controversy. 



While it may be difficult to take this Committee quite 

 seriously, there is a danger that it may be used to divert 

 public attention from the real causes of Parliamentary in- 

 efficiency and decline. Such a result would, perhaps, not 

 be altogether unwelcome to rulers, who, wiser in their 

 generation than the autocrats of old, seek, not to destroy, nor 

 even to suppress, Reformers, but are content to divert 

 their energies into innocent channels, arguing that Reforms 

 which do not touch their own privileges, or threaten the loss 

 of the authority they have usurped, may be tolerated and 

 even encouraged. They know that it is a mockery to extend 

 the Franchise to new classes of electors who are only to share 

 the privilege of voting for members powerless to give effect 

 to the wishes of their constituents, yet they do not hesitate to 

 insult the intelligence of the Democracy by offering it a larger 

 influence in determining the composition of a House with 

 which they refuse to " share the responsibility " of governing 

 the country. 



When will statesmen, who seemingly regard the House of 

 Commons as existing merely for their personal convenience, 



