Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/123

 Some misgiving may well be felt even in the mind of the orator and teacher himself, whether there will in electoral majorities be any sure anchorage for the doctrines that lead to peace and tranquility, when he observes that of the many assemblies which have since met, all ready to grasp the electoral power he would give them, how few have accepted its higher and holier uses.

It is by a concentration of the political strength of the advocates of peace—of all those who believe it to be inconsistent neither with the dignity nor the security of a great people, and that it may be safely built on a policy—open, frank, and just towards all, that they will acquire their due weight. They may rely on that theory which has, "if any theory has—borne the wear of time, and seen empires rise and set, the eternal theory that Truth is better than Falsehold, and that man was made to be upright." This kingdom contains forty thousand ministers of the gospel of peace; perhaps, of all these, not a hundred have had in the existing system any opportunity of giving such votes as expressed their abhorrence of unjust wars—perhaps not one has by his vote produced the smallest effect on the result of any election—nor would their votes have any more weight in the most perfect system of geographical divisions which any Reform Bill has put forward.

On the other hand, there are many who, rejecting all electoral divisions, desire to preserve some of the small boroughs as the avenues for the representation of special interests. In a tabular statement, showing the population of the represented boroughs, beginning at the most, and ending at the least populous, the twelve last places are:—Arundel, Honiton, Ashburton, Lyme Regis, Thetford, Totnes, Harwich, Dartmouth, Evesham, Wells, Reigate, and Richmond, which may be taken as fair examples. What classes, it may be asked, do the electors of these boroughs represent, of what opinions are they the exponents, what interests do they