Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/118

 the principle of election by majorities, according to the existing law. Take the Ayr district, and suppose that there are 1039 voters, viz.,—

It is possible that a majority of the electors of Ayr, or even every elector of Ayr, may be entirely unrepresented. The inhabitants of the four other towns may form the majority, and leave the town of Ayr without any share or voice in the representation. The same may, of course, happen to Campbeltown, Irvine, or any of the other towns. Nothing but securing a majority of the electors of the five towns can assure to any of the towns, or any of the electors in them, the election of their representative. If an unanimous quota of votes, wherever found, be made sufficient to return a representative, not one of the towns, or one of the electors in any town, could be, owing to the votes of the rest, without a representative. The member for Ayr would be elected by the majority of the electors of Ayr. Instead of being restricted to the other four towns, and compelled to consult their respective local prejudices, or succumb to their jealousies or intrigues, every burgh in the district might look for the residue of the quota required by the candidate whom they chose, throughout the entire kingdom of Scotland; and if that be not enough, throughout the United Kingdom. Their position may be likened to that of a merchant, to whom the facility of locomotion has opened all the great marts of commerce ; and who is no more confined, as he had previously been, to the scantily-furnished stores of three or four neighbouring market-towns.

It is a necessary part of the proposed system that the quota