CHAPTER X. THE NOMENCLATURE OF MEMBERS. Designation of a member having no majority-Several constituencies represented by one member-Multiple return of the same member for any number of constituencies-Proposed law admitting an additional return of titular representatives—Operation of the law-Distribution of members to constituencies-Personal representation independent of the question of extent of suffrageTests of electoral capacity and incapacity-Guizot-Capacity independent of place-Town and country inhabitants-Difficulties in asserting the rights of the latter-Conduct of the proprietary classes Mr. Bright Imaginary antagonistic interests Strength of the landed aristocracy-Importance of a just county representation-Electoral equality independent of place-Metropolis and its constituencies-Its failure in representation— Causes-Effect of the individual independence of its electors— Defective judgment and intellect drawn off-Scotch, Irish, county, and local interests regarded by portions of the metropolitan and other great constituencies-Individual independence consistent with local and territorial interests, but not è converso— Proposed law regulating the number of members to be returned by every constituency-Operation of the law supposed to be applied to North Cheshire. A SYSTEM which will permit a representative to be chosen by electors who do not reside, and have not property in, the same district, and are not bound together by any other ties than those of sympathy of feeling or unity of opinion, leads to a possible consequence, which, to some minds, will probably constitute an insurmount able objection to it, the possibility that a member may be elected for whom no name has been provided. He might be elected by men,-perhaps of more than ordinary intelligence—perhaps united in one constituency by some special studies or habits of thought, or, perhaps, coalescing for some public object or some common interest,—but distributed with considerable equality throughout the kingdom; and it may therefore be impossible to call such a representative the member for Andover or the member for Youghal, or for any other of the intervening names which are found in the alphabet of boroughs. Nothing, perhaps, would encounter more prejudice than any proposal involving an alteration in the traditional mode of distinguishing the members of the House of Commons. The system now suggested does not involve such a formidable change. It is only in a possible case, such as that for which section XXVIII.* is intended to provide, that the nominal designation of the member is not ready at hand, it being in all other elections the same as the nominal designation of the constituency itself, and for the case provided for by that section, the House, in dealing with it by resolution, may be safely left to provide. A system which anticipates the progress of the nation, and admits of the formation of new constituencies, as the occasion and desire shall arise, must also contemplate, as has been already observed, the existence of many more constituencies than there can be members, —and, therefore, that one member may represent several constituencies.† This is substantially the case at pre* See p. 221 † P. 195. sent in the contributory boroughs. The member for Ayr, for example, may be called with indifferent accuracy the member for Cambeltown or Irvine. So, in the proposed system, it would be unimportant, in point of nomenclature, whether a member who had been returned for several constituencies should, in the ordinary appellation by which he is addressed in the House, be styled as the member for one rather than the other, although it would be reasonable that he should be usually referred to as the member for that constituency for which he sits, and for which he had also been especially a candidate. Throughout the frame of this scheme it has been an object to create and maintain a connection between the member and the constituents, which shall be due to no selfish or sordid cause, but be solely owing to the estimation by the one, of the virtues of the other. Under the existing system of majorities, every elector may throw upon others the blame of a comtemptible choice. "Thou canst not say I did it," may be the answer to every remonstrance. But the case will be very different when every elector may personally acquire respect or honour, or incur disgrace, by the selection which he makes. In addition to what is merely personal, another powerful feeling of an elevating character, which has already been spoken of,* will be called forth. A collective or corporate feeling of pride is brought into existence, for, although men readily discover reasons for not ascribing to themselves any part of the ignominy that * Pp. 64, 65. attaches to an act which is disgraceful to the body they belong to, yet they are always prompt to claim a share of the credit their community may have gained, and which they commonly appreciate at the utmost of its worth. Dispositions such as these are moral levers. In them we have presented to us a field, both for merit and praise, boundless as the imagination; the civic honours which the people may confer on their more worthy countrymen, by placing them in the front ranks of the Commons of the kingdom, have no limits but the public appreciation of high desert and of the value of such a reward. In the proposed system of election the return of the same member may be double or multiple. The majority in every constituency will confer upon their chosen candidate the title of representative for their particular body; but as the purely political object ceases when the quota is made up, the majority, in placing one member rather than another in the first place, will have no motive but the laudable one of showing the nation that they delight to honour one of its worthiest sons. The prevailing sentiment will be that which we observe to govern the members of ancient institutions and learned and scientific bodies, in nominating as their chancellors, their rectors, or their presidents, the eminent persons of their time. There is no borough, or electoral community, which may not be titularly represented by the most distinguished men, without, in any degree, interfering with their further representation by the members to whom their votes have been specifically appropriated* The spontaneous testi * See section xxxii. p. 233. The candidate who has the mony of public admiration thus offered will not be, because it is an unsolicited tribute to high qualities, adding only to the moral influence of him to whom it is offered, less honourable to the givers than to the receiver. In a time when every effort is devoted to the acquisition of material riches, nothing is without its worth that confers extrinsic dignity or power. We are too prosaic to clothe "The olive wreath, the ivied wand, with the symbolic value given to them by a more imaginative people in an earlier age; but we have not yet lost the estimation of what is great, and no means should be neglected which our institutions can offer of giving prominence to true worth, and impressing upon it the seal of the general approbation. That virtue is its own reward is for the individual a sublime truth, but for society it would be a niggard maxim. We cannot afford to part even with the faint and reflected gleams of human glory. Divinely taught wherein true heroism consists, we may restore again our long-forgotten shrines of hero-worship, and find something better and nobler than an universal idolatry of money. When we have undone the fetters of our electoral bodies,―shaken off all that is mercenary and degrading, and given them health and elasticity,—the free spirit, no longer enslaved by the lower desires and appetites, will ever rise and soar towards that which shall be more and more majority will, in all cases there provided for, be returned as the member, although the votes actually set apart to form his quota, may all be taken from the first constituency for which his name stood as a candidate. |