Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/178

 the noble task of universal education, the state may surely offer more encouragement to its children than is involved in this mean estimate of the confidence which should be reposed in them. The names of the candidates might be inserted in numerical order, or the numbers placed opposite to the names if already inserted, instead of the mark prescribed by the Ballot Act, in their order of preference. It has not been thought absolutely necessary to limit the number of candidates which shall be named on each paper. It is a question which at present may be left open, observing only, that if the use of too long a list were found to lead to the insertion of many names carelessly, after the few more distinguished candidates at the head of the voting paper, the voter might be permitted to include all or any of the candidates for places within his county, and a certain number only of those outside. Such a restriction should not, however, be adopted unless experience proved its necessity. The illiterate voters may be assisted in having the mark added for single, or the numbers if for several, candidates, as the Act prescribes.

In striving to render the act of voting a solemn and deliberate act, we pursue an object which the greatest, the best, and the most scrutinising minds, who have directed their thoughts to political subjects, have always regarded as of paramount importance. It has been the prevailing idea, that political security and happiness depend on the degree in which the votes of a free community:—the delivery of the popular judgment could be "surrounded with the best securities for rectitude, and the best preservatives against haste, passion, or private corruption." Mr. Burke proclaims the foundation of the same great principle—"All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to one great master, author, and founder of society. This principle