Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/113

 mere abolition of a local discrepancy,—an alteration which, it is seen, may even render the actual representation less perfect. Instead of resting satisfied with the removal of mere local irregularities, or inequalities, the object should be to create a general congruity, in which every part of the political edifice is adapted to its true purpose.

There are insurmountable objections to an electoral division founded solely on a geographical or territorial basis, and not corrected by some balancing movement, which answers to the fluctuations of society. In addition to the difficulty of arriving, even in the outset, at anything like equality in such a division, it has constantly to be reconstructed. The shifting centres of population and industry will every year disarrange and disturb it. No session of Parliament would ever pass without claims being urged for a new Reform Bill,—claims which, upon the principle of the divisions supposed to have been already made, are necessarily well founded, and entitled to attention. No one who duly estimates the importance of the ordinary labours of the Legislature, will be inclined to interrupt them by sowing the seeds of such perennial contests.

It is sometimes said, that merely a proximate, and not a mathematical, equality is sought for. Political justice is not so rigid as to demand the same measure of constitutional right for every comer of the kingdom. It is not like the law of nature, inflexible and impartial. It admits of inequality and injustice, on the condition that it be not too great, or too glaring. But who are to be the victims; and will they or ought they to be content with their fate? Would not such contentment, on the principles upon which the reform is carried out, be the mark of a servile disposition ? A foundation adopted on the supposition that it is just, and which, after all, proves to be only an approximation towards justice, will render any settlement that rests upon it necessarily transitory and short-lived. If we begin with perfect accuracy, it secures, at least, a longer period before the scheme will