Philadelphian, for instance, from being returned for Pittsburg, or a Bostonian for Lenox in the west of Massachusetts In England it is not found that a member is less active or successful in urging the local interests of his constituency because he does not live there. He is often more successful, because more personally influential or persuasive than any resident whom the constituency could supply; and in case of a conflict of interests he always feels his efforts to be owing first to his constituents, and not to the place in which he happens to reside.

The mischief is twofold. Inferior men are returned, because there are many parts of the country which do not grow statesmen, where nobody, or at any rate nobody desiring to enter Congress, is to be found above a moderate level of political capacity. And men of marked ability and zeal are prevented from forcing their way in. Such men are produced chiefly in the great cities of the older States. There is not room enough there for nearly all of them, but no other doors to Congress are open. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, could furnish six or eight times as many good members as there are seats in these cities. As such men cannot enter from their place of residence, they do not enter at all, and the nation is deprived of the benefit of their services. Careers are moreover interrupted. A promising politician may lose his seat in his own district through some fluctuation of opinion, or perhaps because he has offended the local wire-pullers by too much independence. Since he cannot find a seat elsewhere, as would happen in England, he is stranded; his political life is closed, while other young men inclined to independence take warning from his fate. Changes in the State laws would not remove the evil, for the habit of choosing none but local men is rooted so deeply that it would probably long survive the abolition of a restrictive law, and it is just as strong in States where no such law exists.1

II. Every senator and representative receives a salary at present fixed at $5000 (£1000) per annum, besides an allowance (called mileage) of 20 cents (10d.) per mile for travelling expenses to and from Washington, and $125 (£25) for stationery. The salary is looked upon as a matter of course. It was not introduced for the sake of enabling working men to be returned

1 In Maryland, a State almost divided into two parts by Chesapeake Bay, it is the invariable practice that one of the two senators should be chosen from the residents east of the bay, the other from those of the western shore.

as members, but on the general theory that all public work ought to be paid for. The reasons for it are stronger than in England or France, because the distance to Washington from most parts of the United States is so great, and the attendance required there so continuous, that a man cannot attend to his profession or business while sitting in Congress. If he loses his livelihood in serving the community, the community ought to compensate him, not to add that the class of persons whose private means put them above the need of a lucrative calling, or of compensation for interrupting it, is comparatively small even now, and hardly existed when the Constitution was framed. Cynics defend the payment of congressmen on another ground, viz. that "they would steal worse if they didn't get it," and would make politics, as Napoleon made war, support itself. Be the thing bad or good, it is at any rate necessary, so that no one talks of abolishing it. For that reason its existence furnishes no argument for its introduction into a small country with a large leisured and wealthy class. In fact, the conditions of European countries are so different from those of America that one must not cite American experience either for or against the remuneration of legislative work. I do not believe that the practice works ill by preventing good men from entering politics, for they feel no more delicacy in accepting their $5000 than an English duke does in drawing his salary as a secretary of state. It may strengthen the tendency of members to regard themselves as mere delegates, but that tendency has other and deeper roots. It contributes to keep up a class of professional politicians, for the salary, though small in comparison with the incomes earned by successful merchants or lawyers, is a prize to men of the class whence professional politicians mostly come. But those English

writers who describe it as the formative cause of that class are mistaken. That class would have existed had members not been paid, would continue to exist if payment were withdrawn. On the other hand, the benefit which the English advocates of paid legislators dilate on, viz. the introduction of a large number of representative working men, has hitherto been little desired and nowise secured. Few such persons appear as candidates in America, and until recently the working class

1 Benjamin Franklin argued strongly in the Convention of 1787 against this theory, but found little support. See his remarkable speech in Mr. John Bigelow's Life of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 389.

has not deemed itself, nor acted as, a distinct body with special interests.1

In 1873 Congress passed an act increasing many official salaries, and among others those of senators and representatives, which it raised from $5000 to $7500 (£1500). All the increases were to take effect for the future only, except that of congressional salaries, which was made retroactive. This unblushing appropriation by Congress of nearly $200,000 to themselves roused so much indignation that the act, except with relation to the salaries of Federal judges, was repealed by the next Congress. It is known as the "back-pay grab."

III. A congressman's tenure of his place is usually short. Senators are sometimes returned for two, three, or even four successive terms by the legislatures of their States, although it may befall even the best of them to be thrown out by a change in the balance of parties, or by the intrigues of an opponent. But a member of the House can seldom feel safe in the saddle. If he is so eminent as to be necessary to his party, or if he maintains intimate relations with the leading local wire-pullers of his district, he may in the eastern, middle, and southern States hold his ground for three or four Congresses, i.e. for six or eight years. Very few do more than this. In the West a member is extremely lucky if he does even this. Out there a seat is regarded as a good thing which ought to go round. It has a salary. It sends a man, free of expense, for two winters and springs to Washington and lets him see something of the fine world there, where he rubs shoulders with ambassadors from Europe. Local leaders cast sheep's eyes at the seat, and make more or less open bargains between themselves as to the order in which they shall enjoy it. So far from its being, as in England, a reason for re-electing a man that he has been a member already, it is a reason for passing him by, and giving somebody else a turn. Rotation in office, dear to the Democrats of Jefferson's school a century ago, still charms the less educated, who see in it a recognition of equality, and have no sense of the value of

1 In Victoria (Australia) members of the popular house receive a salary of £300 a year. I understand that this has had so far no considerable effect iu enabling working men to enter the assembly. In Australia, however, a representative seems to be expected to subscribe to local objects within his constituency, which is not the case in America, and is every day less the case in England. In France and Germany representatives are paid. In Italy they receive no salary, but a free pass over the railroads.

special knowledge or training. They like it for the same reason that the democrats of Athens liked the choice of magistrates by lot. It is a recognition and application of equality. An ambitious congressman is therefore forced to think day and night of his re-nomination, and to secure it not only by procuring, if he can, grants from the Federal treasury for local purposes, and places for the relatives and friends of the local wire-pullers who control the nominating conventions, but also by sedulously "nursing" the constituency during the vacations. No habit could more effectually discourage noble ambition or check the growth of a class of accomplished statesmen. There are few walks of life in which experience counts for more than it does in parliamentary politics. It is an education in itself, an education in which the quick-witted western American would make rapid progress were he suffered to remain long enough at Washington. At present he is not suffered, for, as observed above, nearly one half of each successive house consists of new men, while the old members are too much harassed by the trouble of procuring their re-election to have time or motive for the serious study of political problems. This is what comes of the doctrine that a member ought to be absolutely dependent on his constituents, and of the notion that politics is neither a science, nor an art, nor even an occupation, like farming or store-keeping, in which one learns by experience, but a thing which comes by nature, and for which one man of common sense is as fit as another.

IV. The last-mentioned evil is aggravated by the short duration of a Congress. Short as it seems, the two years term was warmly opposed, when the Constitution was framed, as being too long. The constitutions of the several States, framed when they shook off the supremacy of the British Crown, all fixed one year, except the ultra-democratic Connecticut and Rhode Island, where under the colonial charters a legislature met every six months, and South Carolina, which had fixed two years. essential to republicanism was this principle deemed, that the maxim "where annual elections end tyranny begins" had passed into a proverb; 2 and the authors of the Federalist were obliged

So

1 In the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, when this question was being discussed, "General Thomson then broke out into the following pathetic apostrophe, 'O my country, never give up your annual elections: young men, never give up your jewel.' He apologized for his zeal."-Elliot's Debates, vol. ii. p. 16.

The whole subject is discussed with acuteness and judgment in the 51st and 52d numbers of the Federalist, numbers whose authorship is variously attri

VOL. I

to argue that the limited authority of Congress, watched by the executive on one side, and the State legislatures on the other, would prevent so long a period as two years from proving dangerous to liberty, while it was needed in order to enable the members to master the laws and understand the conditions of different parts of the Union. At present the two years term is justified on the ground that it furnishes a proper check on the President. The Congress elected in the autumn of 1884 at the same time as the President, meets in December 1885, while another, elected in 1886, meets in 1887, and thus covers the later part of his four years term. Thus the people can, if they please, express disapproval of the policy which he has so far followed. One is also told that these frequent elections are necessary to keep up popular interest in current politics, nor do some fail to hint that the temptations to jobbing would overcome the virtue of members who had a longer term before them. Where American opinion is unanimous, it would be presumptuous for a stranger to dissent. Yet the remark may be permitted that the dangers originally feared have proved chimerical. There is no country whose representatives are more dependent on popular opinion, more ready to trim their sails to the least breath of it. The public acts, the votes, and speeches of a member from Oregon or Texas can be more closely watched by his constituents than those of a Virginian member could be watched in 1789.1 And as the frequency of elections involves inexperienced members, the efficiency of Congress suffers.

V. The numbers of the two American houses seem small to a European when compared on the one hand with the population of the country, on the other with the practice of European States. The Senate has 76 members against the British House of Lords with about 560, and the French Senate with 300. House has 325 against the British House of Commons with 670, and the French and Italian Chambers with 584 and 508 respectively.

The

The Americans, however, doubt whether both their Houses have not already become too large. They began with 26 in the buted to Hamilton and to Madison. In England the duration of parliaments was at one time (and may perhaps be again) matter of active controversy. One of the five points of the "People's Charter" of 1848 was the restriction of their duration to one year.

1 Of course his conduct in committee is rarely known, but I doubt whether the shortness of the term makes him more scrupulous.