Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/143

 election usnally hangs less upon their wills, than upon the indirect and illegitimate influences which sway the rest.

The fault or the misfortune of an unworthy choice is primarily due to the absence of responsibility. There is no single elector on whom the opprobrium fells, and a disgrace which is shared with an entire electoral district is no disgrace at all. The borough, or the district, is not under responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on earth,—the sense of fame and estimation. The share of infamy that is likely to fell to the lot of each individual in public acts is small indeed; the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favour. It is the sense of individual "fame and estimation," or, in other words, of individual and personal responsibility, that it is absolutely necessary to restore; and this individual responsibility cannot be restored unless the individual electors have, each and every of them, that power which the old patron or political leader had, of looking around, and selecting as his representative that man whom he believes to be the best suited for the office; and this cannot be if his power of choice be restricted to the two, three, or four persons who may think proper to present themselves, and solicit his suffrage.

No society, whether it be domestic, civil, or military, can prosper, unless all those who compose it have, not only their appropriate duties, but means and opportunity to perform them. The business of a nation can be conducted by no other mystery. It is of so much importance that the principle of personal responsibility in the performance of electoral duties should be realised, that it may be useful to exhibit its active operation in the other affairs of life, in which men are compelled to feel a real concern. In questions of property, the most ingenious endeavours are made to protect a man