Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/117

 of the proposed electoral law, for the direction of the Registrars in appropriating the remainder of the voting papers.

The fourth clause of the proposed electoral law has prescribed the number of votes which shall be sufficient for the return of any member,—and the following clause defines the number which shall be insufficient.

In effecting the greatest moral object that society is called upon to undertake,—the formation of a legislative assembly,—a rational standard of association is thus substituted for a traditional one. Instead of an arbitrary geographical division, which the migrations of population will constantly disturb, the proposed equality of division would be affected by no commercial or social changes which the face of the country might undergo. It affords the means of giving to the counties, and to all the larger, as well as to the smaller towns, their due weight in the Legislature, by a rule at all times arithmetically correct, and admitting of no invidious distinctions between the inhabitants of the metropolis, or of the provinces. It places upon an equality the gentleman in Devonshire with the gentleman in Yorkshire, the merchant in Liverpool with the merchant in Yarmouth, the tradesman in Cornhill and in Calne, the artizans on the Trent and on the Tees. The relative weight of the larger, as well as of the smaller constituencies, is accurately measured and reconciled with the general representative system.

The operation of a system of electoral divisions composed of an unanimous quota of votes, may be compared with the operation of a system of contributory burghs, founded on