Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/152

 and declared the previous resolution of the 17th of February, 1769, that had "affirmed his incapacity to sit in that Parliament, subversive of the rights of the whole body of the electors of the kingdom." The expurgatory resolution has been supported on the technical ground of the omission, in the resolution of 1769, of the imputed criminality which was the cause of the expulsion; but it does not rest on so narrow a basis. Every law which prevents the electors of the kingdom from choosing any man whom they may consider the most fit to represent them, is in effect the adoption of a principle antagonistic to and subversive of their rights. It may possibly be justified by expediency; but the cases in which that justification can be established are very rare, and would almost entirely disappear under such a system of representation as is here contemplated, in which every member would be chosen by a quotient or nearly a quotient of the electoral body, all the electors having, at the same time, a field of choice bounded only by the intellect, the activity, or the political ambition of the age in which they live.

The impediments in the way of candidates, and which, to an incalculable extent, diminish the number from amongst whom representatives must be chosen, may be classed under three principal heads: First, pecuniary, or obstacles interposed by the expenses, which are either lawful and inevitable, or otherwise generally regarded as necessary to success; secondly, those occasioned by the peculiarities and difficulties of the manner of communication between the candidate and the electors; and thirdly, the grounds of exclusion created by positive law.

In this kingdom a large number of persons qualified for political life by their studies and habits of thought, possess but small or very moderate fortunes. Of these many would be found who would not only willingly, but eagerly, devote themselves to parliamentary and legislative labours, without