Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/101

 which they amount, four and a-half tons of oil valued at £104, are the only portion not raised by the unrepresented part of the community. In legislating for new conditions of society, men should resort to principles, and not be guided entirely by precedent. Qui hœret in literâ, hœret in cortice. The freehold was adopted by our ancestors as the test of qualification, not because there was any greater virtue in a lease for life, than for a term of ninety-nine years, but because, as the name implies, it was the peculiar tenure of the freeman, and the test of his being such, which in those primitive times was considered a sufficient qualification for the exercise of the elective franchise. In modern times, the same object of limiting the elective franchise to those whose position in life gives a certain degree of assurance that they would properly exercise this important privilege, has been carried out in the British isles by enlarging the qualification, but still resting it, for the most part, on the basis of landed property, or the occupation of a house of a certain value, which there forms a very fair test. In the case, however, of the three universities, as also in that of freemen of cities, this principle is departed from; and in these, the qualification to exercise this right is ascertained by a test totally irrespective of property.

If, then, respectability tested by the possession of a .fixed property be taken as the basis of qualification, or if, as some perhaps may propose, and as is the case in France, the direct contributions of a certain amount towards the public burthens should be employed as a test, on either or both these grounds the stockholders