"I maintain that it is not cheap for the Government to pay men 21s. per week, although other employers may be able to get them for that amount. If the men had more money they would be able to get better house accommodation, and the ratepayers would be saved the substantial sums now paid under the Poor Law for medical orders for people brought up in over-crowded homes. The President of the Local Government Board knows that in consequence of over-crowding in London, hundreds of such medical orders go to people living under unhealthy conditions, impossible to avoid when the family depends on this weekly wage of 21s. paid to Government employees. Such earnings are barely sufficient for food, let alone shelter. An order has been issued by the Local Government Board instructing Guardians to feed the inmates of workhouses properly. The minimum scale laid down for persons in workhouses is of a character that no man with a family can approach if he is only earning 21s. a week. What I urge is that the men in the employment of the State should have a Local Government Board existence, if nothing else--that the men in the national workshops should no longer have to live on a lower food scale than that prescribed for workhouses." Before he had been in Parliament a month, he got an opportunity to introduce a proposal in favour of the payment of members. The House was well filled when he rose to move the following motion:-- That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable and expedient that, in order to give constituencies a full and free choice in the selection of Parliamentary candidates, the charges now made by the returning officer to the candidates should be chargeable to public funds, and that all members of the House of Commons should receive from the State a reasonable stipend during their Parliamentary life. He addressed the House at some length on this motion. Here is a summary of his speech:-- There was a good deal of talk about there being absolute equality in this country, but there was, as every member knew, only one way of getting into the House, and that was by spending substantial sums of money. A considerable sum of money was spent in securing his election, but he did not have to find a farthing of it. The cash was subscribed openly and freely. But he had often heard it asked when a poor man was standing: "Who is finding your money?" Only the other day he saw the following advertisement in the _Yorkshire Post_:-- M.P.--A gentleman, thirty, holding a responsible position in London, desirous of entering Parliament, wishes to meet with an affectionate and wealthy lady, view matrimony. Genuine. Highest credentials.