THE COMMONWEALTH 347 



Payment of Members of Parliament is another Victorian example 

 which has not yet been followed in Great Britain. It has been 

 shown at some length that the principle of paying a salary for the 

 services of representatives was not permanently affirmed until after 

 long and bitter contests. At one time the means adopted to enforce 

 it threatened a complete breakdown of Government, and involved 

 many non-combatants in grievous financial loss. It is far from 

 being an ideally perfect system, and it has certainly never produced 

 anything approaching to an ideally perfect House. But there were 

 many reasons in a youthful and aspiring community why the 

 demand for payment found so many and such vigorous advocates. 

 In the first Victorian Parliament under the Constitution, out of sixty 

 members of the Assembly, forty-five were Melbourne residents. 

 They were approximately classified as one-fourth merchants, one- 

 fourth lawyers, nearly one-fourth squatters, and the balance men 

 engaged in the minor branches of trade. As settlement spread over 

 the country, the electors in the interior believed that their interests 

 could only be properly looked after by one of themselves : one 

 who knew their wants, and would be prepared to advocate them if 

 needs be as a matter taking precedence of abstract notions about 

 the general welfare. The theory of the greatest happiness for the 

 greatest number had to give way before pressing local necessities, 

 and the twenty-five country electorates proclaimed that they were 

 not to be sacrificed to the interests of the dozen metropolitan and 

 suburban constituencies. But they could not find local men willing 

 to leave their own affairs without some remuneration, and many of 

 the remoter districts were practically in the position which Mel- 

 bourne resented when the old Council held its sittings in Sydney. 

 It is not surprising that the country at large backed up the agitation 

 for payment, but the turmoil and violence which accompanied its 

 passage arose from causes altogether apart from a calm conviction 

 of its expediency. That outburst was the result of Mr. Berry's 

 passionate appeals to class prejudices. It was the mendacious im- 

 putation of unworthy motives to all opponents, with which that 

 gentleman engineered his claim through the Assembly, that caused 

 its enactment to leave such a black mark on Victorian legislation. 



Certainly the practice has not resulted in all the ills which its 



