Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/225

 bitants of Norwich, but, on the contrary, have in fact increased that power; for, in proposing for the choice of the electors of Norwich several other candidates, and voting for them instead of the Norwich candidates, those minorities of electors have, in fact, abdicated their power of influencing the Norwich return, and left the election entirely in the hands of the other citizens. At the same time, though powerless at Norwich, these small minorities are not necessarily so elsewhere. They may have had an important influence in assisting to complete the number of votes required for their favourite candidates, as is seen by looking at the fact which has been supposed to have taken place at this election, where a few of the voters of many other and perhaps remote constituencies, including possibly some natives of Norwich, who in distant places retain their affection for the place of their birth, have given to the 1,000 electors of Norwich—it may be of wider intelligence, higher intellectual range, or more comprehensive sympathies—the means of placing F in the position of one of the chosen candidates for that city.

One other hypothesis will suffice to explain the electoral position of such of the Aberdeen and Norwich voters, in the cases supposed, as may have placed the names of unsuccessful candidates at the head of their voting papers. None of these votes can be at first appropriated to any candidate whose name is placed lower on the paper; because, until the general election is over, it cannot be known whether the first-named candidate might not be one of those who succeed, and to whose success that vote may contribute. Under a subsequent law (Clause XXVI.) all votes in this condition will be appropriated to the highest successful candidate on each voting paper. If the highest successful candidate of the voting paper of an Aberdeen or Norwich voter be an Aberdeen or Norwich member, the returning officer will reckon him among that constituency; but however that may be, the voter becomes part of the constituency of the member whose name