WANTED: A NEW REFORM BILL [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—The scheme of devolution suggested by Mrs. Webb would apparently increase by at least 50 per cent. the number of legislators at 1400 a year and also the bureaucracy, which would be expanded in proportion or more. That is enough to put it out of court, for financial reasons alone. Nor is the party system, which Mrs. Webb seems to take for granted, commended to the future by its contemporary performance. Perhaps the "new Reform Bill" should rather aim at a British adaptation of the corporative principle in the new Italian State. Occupational instead of regional representation might better reflect the true interests of the country, if based upon a considered scale of values, disfranchising the dole- drawers. Some kind of senate might be entrusted with Imperial and foreign affairs, which the average elector has neither time nor ability to understand, and consequently would rather not be bothered with. In any case, the modern desire for inter-state co-operation, whether through the Imperial Conference or the League of Nations, cuts at the root of parliamentary control as hitherto understood.—I am,
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