hed the
financial task Walpole would, if he could, have accomplished a century
and a half earlier.

[Sidenote: 1723--Parliamentary corruption]

No one can deny that Walpole was an unscrupulous minister. He would
gladly have carried out the best policy by the best means; but where
this was not practicable or convenient he was perfectly willing to
carry {231} out a noble policy by the vilest methods. He was not
himself avaricious; he was not open to the temptations of money. He
had a fortune large enough for him, and he spent it freely, but he was
willing to bribe and corrupt all those of whom he could make any use.
Under his rule corruption became a settled Parliamentary system. He
had done more than any other man to make the House of Commons the most
powerful factor in the government of England; he had therefore made a
seat in the House of Commons an object of the highest ambition. To sit
in that House made the obscurest country gentleman a power in the
State. Naturally, therefore, a seat in the House of Commons was
struggled for, scrambled for, fought for--obtained at any cost of
money, influence, time, and temper. Naturally, also, a seat thus
obtained was a possession through which recompense of some kind was
expected. Those who buy their seats naturally expect to sell their
votes; at least that was so in the days of Walpole. In times nearer to
our own, England has seen a condition of things in which public opinion
and the development of a sort of national conscience absolutely
prevented members from taking bribes, although it allowed them the most
liberal use of bribery and corruption in the obtaining of their seats.
The member of Parliament who, twenty or thirty years ago, would have
bought his seat by means of the most unblushing and shameless
corruption, would no more have thought of selling his vote to a
minister for a money payment than he would have thought of selling his
wife at Smithfield. But in Walpole's time the man who bought his seat
was ready to sell his vote. Walpole, the minister, was willing to buy
the vote of any man who would sell it. He was lavish in the gift of
lucrative offices, of rich sinecures, of pensions, and even of bribes
in a lump sum, money down. He would bribe a member's wife, if that
were more convenient than openly to bribe the member himself. He had
no particular choice as to whether the bribe should be direct or
indirect, open or secret; he {232} wanted to get the v