prevents any partner from appointing or dismissing a cashier, or a clerk, or a warehouseman, without the consent of all the partners? Suppose they should not consent, the business might then be absolutely at a stand still." "They would dissolve the partnership," was the reply. It is thus that, with many subjects on which they think differently, the necessity of joint action compels every partner to respect the opinion of every other; and the association continues for the lives of several persons, which, if it had been founded on compulsion, would probably have ended in bringing the concern to a helpless and profitless condition, or to

ruin.

"The principle," says Mr. Calhoun, in the work which has been quoted, "by which constitutional governments are upheld, is compromise, that of absolute governments is force."* By giving full, and no more than full weight to opposing and conflicting interests, a salutary check is interposed to all precipitate resolutions. "They render deliberation a matter not of choice but of necessity; they make all change a subject of compromise, which materially begets moderation; they produce temperaments preventing the sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified reformations, and rendering all the headlong exertions of arbitrary power for ever impracticable."

How, then, are those who are weaker in numbers, those who have formed their opinions on matters concerning the public welfare, upon considerations which the majority do not enter into, or do not appreciate,— to bring about this compromise? It is plain that they

cannot effect it, without the power of exercising a volition of their own. Neither reason, entreaty, nor persuasion, will be enough. When the majority feel that their will cannot be controlled, and that they may defy and despise the minorities, they will assuredly do so, and the remonstrances of the latter will become the subject of "ridicule and scorn." * "The highest moral obligations: truth, justice, and plighted faith,—much less prudence and propriety,-oppose, of themselves, but feeble resistance to the abuse of power."† The basis of union and permanence, in the ordinary partnerships by which most of the commercial transactions of the world are carried on, is the necessity of mutual attention, forbearance, and respect. If this be not rendered by one to the other, the partnership is dissolved. That it is not so dissolved, is because the feebler judgment yields to the stronger, the cautious is encouraged by the more impetuous, the more impetuous is tempered by the cautious, and each character and person derives improvement and profit from the combination. The compromise is enforced by the existence of the power in each partner, if he be dissatisfied with the conduct of the rest, to dissolve the partnership, as to himself.

The progress of physical science has advanced by observation of the laws which apply to things under our sight, and the application of the same laws to bodies of greater magnitude which are otherwise beyond our vision and comprehension. It reasons from the lesser to the greater. So in political life; an element which is potent, and preserves harmony in the smaller

sections of society, may be brought to bear on its larger combinations. Let any elector or electors, whether they consist only of the "tens or twenties," to whom Lord Harrowby referred, in presenting a petition from members of the learned professions and others, as "scattered in the vast communities, and whose votes are now utterly without influence in any one place," * or whether they compose any of the various sections of society who look to moral, rather than to purely political doctrines, or whatever may be their causes of dissent, be permitted, when occasion arises, to dissolve the union which the place of residence or some other accident has created between them and the other members of the constituency on which their votes are registered, and let them add their votes, if they desire, to those of some other constituency, but so as not to interfere with any majorities. They may thus become partners with other electors with whom they have more sympathy. Eminent judges, in administering the law, have sometimes likened the union between partners, when they looked at the losses and evils which commonly accrue to them from suddenly and angrily severing the connection, as even having some analogy to another union, for better and for There is, however, no such indissoluble bond uniting together the dwellers in every borough. They may be told to be, if they can, unanimous in the choice of a representative; but if an elector cannot agree with the majority on one side of a parish boundary, there would be no necessary breach of the order, or even of the courtesies of society, if he were permitted to unite

worse.

*Parl. Hist. vol. cxxii. p. 1184.

himself with a number of his fellow countrymen on the other side. He is not precluded from choosing his friends or associates beyond the boundaries of his own borough; and there does not seem to be sound reason any why he should not be allowed, with a like freedom, to seek elsewhere his fellow constituents. If the legal obstacles in the way of this exercise of individual volition were removed, and the elector were enabled to seek elsewhere for electors agreeing with him in sympathy and opinion, and sufficient to form a constituency, it is obvious, that, so far as representation is concerned, the question as to minorities would cease, for the minorities would be absorbed. If, notwithstanding the removal of the legal obstacles, the elector be unable to find any constituency with whom he can concur, it must be owing to the singularity or eccentricity of his political views, and the unrepresented minority is reduced to the smallest limits, and will include only those impracticable tempers, for whose satisfaction it is neither possible nor desirable to provide.

CHAPTER II.

OF CONSTITUENCIES BY VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION

AND UNANIMITY.

Association of individual electors of different constituenciesRespect for the opinions of minorities-Relative magnitude of voluntary constituencies-Average number of electors-Mode of obtaining it from time to time-Registrar's offices-Proposed laws for registering annually the aggregate of electors, for ascertaining a quota, and for its promulgation-Numbers at the present time-Extent of the field for collecting kindred opinions -Expression of all earnest sentiments-Address of 1857 on the educational franchise-Defects of the form suggestedProposed law giving unanimous constituencies representation— Unsuitableness of the geographical principle for its objects-Its unjust and impolitic character-Representation of interestsLand or agriculture-Manufactures-Shipping-Trade-Working classes-Contrast of a system of individual independence with its opposite.

IN the last chapter every constituency or electoral college has been regarded in the light of a partnership, the members of which are engaged in a great undertaking that requires all their individual as well as their joint skill and energy, and in which none should be even sleeping partners, much less partners repudiating and protesting against the acts of the rest, and yet unable to extricate themselves. It has been said that, in order to express the various opinions of those who form minorities, they should be permitted, not by dissent to impede the free action of the