MY four-year initiation into the mysteries of local government did nothing to dispel my suspicions of parliamentary 'democracy'.

I learned to respect the varied duties and astonishing amount of expertise and effort required of our councillors. Wrathful correspondents who, I assume, know more of the matter than I, consistently ignore this salient point.

Even councillors who are not worth their salt, and whose service to the community consists of little more than putting a hand up or out, as appropriate, are still doing a job few of us would care to undertake. This should be taken into consideration when assessing rewards.

Obviously, it is quite unsatisfactory that politicians should be allowed to write out their own job description and pay-scale, and make rules for others which they decline to observe themselves; but whose fault is that?

Power notoriously corrupts; and where corruption is possible, corruption is inevitable. When we make political parties our masters we must not expect them to behave like servants. If we want politicians to act democratically we shall first have to have a democracy.

William Dixon Smith,

Welland Rise, Acomb, York.