Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/27

 sometimes possible that a law may increase both the effectiveness and representativeness of the Legislature. The Reform Act of 1832 certainly made the House of Commons a better representative of the English people than it had been before 1832, and probably created a legislative body which passed laws better in themselves than would have been enacted by the unreformed Parliament. But then it may well happen that, on the one hand, a change which increases the effectiveness of a legislative body may diminish its representativeness, or, on the other hand, that a change which increases its representativeness diminishes its legislative effectiveness. The disfranchisement, for example, of Irish forty - shilling freeholders raised the character and increased the legislative effectiveness of the Imperial Parliament. But it assuredly made that Parliament represent less perfectly than before the wishes of a large body of Irishmen. It is probable that the legislative character of Congress would be raised if no American citizen were allowed a vote until he had given bona fide proof that he could read and write;