acility, apart from his bent and
disposition, for taking an active and intelligent part in public
affairs, and he has approved himself a most industrious and zealous
legislator. No man is closer in his attendance on the House of Commons.
During his first session in Parliament he was present at 128 out of 160
divisions; his second year in Parliament, though he was away ill for a
month, was marked by a scarcely less scrupulous and regular attention to
his duties, for he was present at 171 out of 264 divisions; and in his
third session he was present at 262 out of 270.

Mr. Anderson made his maiden speech in Parliament on the 3rd day of
March, 1869. The occasion was the second reading of Mr. Fawcett's
Election Expenses Bill, which proposed to throw the expenses of
elections on the ratepayers. In the course of his address, which was
listened to with the utmost attention, Mr. Anderson said--"To the great
bulk of those whom he addressed, the payment of L200 or L300 was in all
probability a matter of trifling importance; but undoubtedly the
necessity for incurring even that expense had a great effect in limiting
the field from which constituencies might choose their members; and if
the House were anxious to avoid the charge of desiring to keep
Parliamentary honours and political power in the possession of one
class--namely, the class of very wealthy men--they must legislate in the
direction proposed by the hon. member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett). It
should be remembered that in limiting the field from which
constituencies might choose their members, the House thereby tended to
limit its own intellectual power."

Again, in Committee of Supply on the army estimates, Mr. Anderson
addressed the House on the 11th March, 1869; and on the 17th June, 1869,
he electrified the "Colonels" of the House by declaring, while speaking
of the great expense of the non-effective services and pensions, that
"he thought the whole system of pay and pensions in the army was rotten
and wrong.... Officers ought to provide for old age out of their
incomes, and even if their pay were proportionately increased, the
service would gain in efficiency if the change made it less
aristocratic, by throwing it open to men without private fortunes, who
must live on their pay." Mr. Anderson has persistently, both in season
and out of season, kept "pegging away" at the bugbear of Army Reform,
and on the 2d August, 1870, he attacked the abuse of sinecure Colonels,