A Treatise on the Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal

the attainment of a perfect system of personal representation is not opposed by any difficulties inherent in the subject; and that such a system is not only consistent with the due and just representation of every class and interest in the kingdom, as well as of the public which comprises all, but that it affords the most permanent and certain mode of representing and expressing the special views and opinions of all interests and classes; and that it also goes very far to remove, even if it does not entirely obviate, all the sinister influences which have been hitherto found to prevail in the collection of the suffrages of the electors. It will be seen that personal representation, to be perfectly carried out, must be founded upon the basis of individual independence; that such independence may be obtained without departing from any of our traditional forms of electoral incorporation, and that it even affords peculiar facilities for giving greater scope and expansion to such local and traditional combinations. The electoral arrangements which are proposed require no operation that cannot readily be executed by instruments whieh the administrator will always have at his command; and they prescribe no duty, which any person of

to stand in need of development more in the way of showing its praticability, than of proving the value of the objects which it was directed to attain.

ordinary capacity he is not competent to perform.* It is only necessary to resort to those common aids which education and science now afford, the knowledge of letters, which was not implied in times when the election was made by a show of hands,-and the means of rapid conveyance and transport, which were not possessed by former generations.

With a view to avoid any expressions which might be vague or indeterminate, to render the proposal definite and precise, and enable its practicability to be readily and distinctly considered, the whole scheme has been wrought into the form of a supposed electoral law, the clauses of which are distributed amongst the several chapters,-following the respective branches of the

* The author cannot forbear to cite the following communication from a gentleman whose labours in psychological investigations are known to the public :-"It will probably be found, that, in the process of freeing the conscience of the most enlightened citizens, we shall give free scope to the choice of the most ignorant, while the choice of the latter will be constantly improved and balanced, not by the will, but by the enlightenment of the classes above them. Newton, in showing the laws of the attraction of the most visible and measurable of the planets to the sun, inferentially also developed the relations of the more distant; and thus, too, if we can succeed in tracing the relation which the powers of choice among men of thought,-its wisest members,-bear to the will and wisdom of the collective community, we shall be able, approximately at least, to infer the mode by which those parts of a national system which are furthest removed from the central sun of knowledge and conscience, can be subordinated to the public good."

subjects to which they relate, and in which are explanations of the principle, the purpose, and the operation of every clause. A table has also been introduced, showing the entire law, and referring to the pages in which every clause will be severally found.

All

If, by the means which are here proposed, or by any which are better and wiser, an electoral system can be established, which, in the work of forming a representative body, shall succeed in calling into action all the thought and intellect of the nation, the effect would be to create a new object of inquiry and study, extending over a field of which we know not the bounds. attempts to engage society in political conflicts for abstract principles would be thenceforth vain, and statesmen would seek to build their fame on something more solid and durable than party triumphs. A representation of all intelligences, founded upon a wisely regulated franchise, cannot be dangerous; it would contain within it breadth, symmetry, cohesion, and durability,— all the elements of strength and safety, and would possess, moreover, a capacity and a disposition for social improvement, without any limit but that of the human faculties.

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