w figure shares in
undertakings which are likely to be favourably affected by legislation
for which they vote, in the expectation or hope of profit therefrom; but
it is exceedingly difficult to say in any given case whether a member's
vote has been influenced by his financial interest (whether, on public
grounds, he would not have voted as he did under any circumstances), and
at what point the mere employment of sound business judgment ends and
the prostitution of legislative influence begins. The same may be said
of the accusations so commonly made against members of making use of
information which they acquire in the committee room for purposes of
speculation.

Washington, during the sessions of Congress is full of "lobbyists"--_i.
e._, men who have no other reason for their presence at the capital
than to further the progress of legislation in which they are interested
or who are sent there for the purpose by others who have such an
interest; but it is my conviction (and I know it is that of others
better informed than myself) that the instances wherein the labours of a
lobbyist go beyond the use of legitimate argument in favour of entirely
meritorious measures are immensely fewer than the reader of the
sensational press might suppose. The American National Legislature is,
indeed, a vastly purer body than demagogues, or the American press,
would have an outsider believe.

There is no doubt that large manufacturing and commercial concerns do
exert themselves to secure the election to the House, and perhaps to the
Senate, of persons who are practically their direct representatives,
their chief business in Congress being the shaping of favourable
legislation or the warding off of that which would be disadvantageous to
the interests which are behind them. Undoubtedly also such large
concerns, or associated groups of them, can bring considerable pressure
to bear upon individual members in divers ways, and there have been
notorious cases wherein it has been shown that this pressure has been
unscrupulously used. Except in the case of the railways, which have only
a secondary interest in tariff legislation, this particular abuse must
be charged to the account of the protective policy, and its development
in some measure would perhaps be inevitable in any country where a
similar policy prevailed.

In the British Parliament there are, of course, few important lines of
trade or industry which are not abundantly represented,