Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/147

 the most enlarged field of choice, and the most unfettered means of exercising it.

A method of effecting these objects has been partly stated, and remains to be farther explained. The first condition obviously is, that every elector, when he is called upon to exercise his franchise, should be perfectly informed of the extent of the choice before him. When it becomes his duty to select a representative, he must be told who are willing to accept the trust, that, amongst them, he may choose the man whom he shall deem the fittest to be entrusted. No proposition can be more simple or undeniable than that, properly to exercise a discretion, it is necessary to know what discretion one has to exercise. The names of all persons who may offer themselves for the political service of their country may be collected under a law, of which the following is an outline:—

The names of all those who may offer themselves for the political service of their country having been thus collected—without, in any measure, interfering with the individual and special efforts which any man may think proper to adopt, for the purpose of communicating with the particular boroughs