DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 9 ) Large towns were unrepresented, and small boroughs which belonged to private individuals were over-represented. The whole parliamentary influence and the whole patronage of the State were in the hands of a wealthy limited class. Parliamentary debates were held with closed doors, and reporters were excluded. Appointments of the most lucra- tive description, sinecures now abolished, and gifts of all kinds were at the disposal of ministers and their supporters. One of these offices, the Paymaster Generalship of the Army and Navy, brought in an income of between forty and fifty thousand a-year. The salary at present attached to that office is 20000. ; and the holder of it in Mr. Gladstone’s last adminis- tration, Lord Wolverton, drew no salary whatever. In former days candidates employed the most corrupt methods to obtain a seat in Parliament. When returned they bartered their support to one or other of the two parties, and when their party was in power they received in exchange valuable offices for themselves and their friends. In addition to this the secrecy with which the proceedings in Parliament were conducted, and the non-existence of the press, left Members without responsibility to their con- stituents for their parliamentary action. Thus arose a hideous system of bribery and corruption. Ministers bribed members, who, in turn, secured their seats by bribing the electors. An idea