Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/156

150 adoption of the system, we will cite its results in one midland county – Leicester. Here the number of members to be returned – six – remains unchanged; but its two county divisions – the South with a population of 90,000, the North with 110,000 – are to be divided into four single-member districts; while Leicester, with a population larger than either, 123,000, is to remain, like the French republic, one and undivided. One effect of this glaring anomaly will be, that the county electors will be able to vote for only one member, while the borough elector will wield and exercise a dual vote. We shall be much surprised if the counties and the larger boroughs are content that the electors of this privileged class of boroughs shall possess double the voting-power conferred on the rest of the electorate of the United Kingdom. The simple and obvious way of curing this injustice would be to divide the boroughs in question into two constituencies; but if any good reason can be shown, which we doubt, for their retention undivided, then their electors should be allowed to give only one vote apiece. We sincerely hope that this blot in the scheme is not one of the vital principles of the measure to which the Government and the leaders of the Opposition are irretrievably committed.

The only other important feature of the bill to which we think exception may fairly be taken, is the increase of the number of members by twelve – in order, nominally, to give the required addition to Scotland, but in reality to purchase the assent of Ireland and Wales to the whole scheme without offending either Scotland or England. The motive is paltry, the proposal objectionable. It is not many years ago since a strong Select Committee, presided over by Mr Headlam, reported unanimously in favour of building a new House of Commons, on the ground that the existing Chamber, with its division lobbies, galleries, and offices, was insufficient for the wants and requirements of members. Nothing has occurred since then to diminish those wants and requirements; on the contrary, members are compelled to spend many more hours in the House than they did then, and the demands for space and accommodation in the Peers', the Reporters', and the Strangers' galleries are constantly increasing, while the atmospheric condition of the division lobbies on the occasion of any great division is scandalously bad. On merely physical and structural grounds, therefore, the proposal ought to be resisted.

But when Mr Gladstone's and Lord Hartington's recent complaints of the garrulity of members, and the consequent impediments placed in the way of the proper despatch of business, and the certainty that the further democratisation of the House of Commons will lead to further loquacity, are taken into consideration, the more preposterous will the proposal to add to the numbers of the House appear. With the exception of Mr Parnell and his followers, who naturally encourage any measure which facilitates obstruction and increases confusion, we doubt whether any section of the House is favourable to this method of securing a fair proportion of representation between the component parts of the kingdom. In our last number we indicated the mode by which, in our judgment, that desirable end could best be obtained, and to it we adhere. By bringing the representation of Ire-