Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/10

vi would be reduced, tranquillity assured, and electoral freedom extended by proportional representation. The Committee, however, requested their chairman to reply that the object of their inquiry did not extend to a consideration of the subject under any other than the existing conditions, and they declined to accept the evidence. It is greatly to be regretted that at a period of transition in the history of representative government they should have considered that so comprehensive a reference was satisfied by an inquiry thus superficial, and thought that the evils of corruption, violent manifestations of discontent, and restricted power of selection, had no deeper sources than the imperfect machinery of the polling booth. It would be scarcely thought compatible with scientific investigation if one charged to inquire how the public health in a city might be best promoted, should decline to look into the sources and purity of the water or the completeness of the drainage, and regard himself as confined to the “existing conditions,” assume the existing diseases to be inevitable, and try to discover nothing more than the medicines that could be resorted to as antidotes.

The Ballot Act, whether it be regarded as a fruit of the inquiry of the Committee, or as the result of a foregone conclusion, has now become law; and all the rules and forms heretofore proposed as to voting, which were in any respect incompatible with it, have been altered or expunged. The author has not, however, thought it necessary to withdraw any of the speculative observations which he ventured to make in former editions with regard to secrecy in political action. Secrecy is no obstacle to any part of the scheme ; on the contrary, in many points of view it may render its adoption still more desirable or even necessary; but a frank manifestation of all opinions is more in conformity with the ideal of healthy national life.