Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/249

 stituencies in England and Wales, to which part of the United Kingdom it exclusively applied, are set forth in the schedule; but the numbers are to be subject to alteration according to the population at every decennial census. Such a distribution of seats was objected to in the debate, on the ground that the number of registered voters, and not population, should form the standard. The argument at once suggests the question whether the principle which is at the basis of the system advocated in this treatise might not be well introduced into any measure for a just apportionment of political power, however rigidly local the electoral districts may be framed. The election of members for Birmingham may be confined to the voters for Birmingham, and that for Warwickshire to the county voters, by whatever measure the number of members they are respectively entitled to elect shall be ascertained. The subject of exclusive local action in its general character and results is treated in an earlier chapter, but the possibility and advantage of measuring the political power of localities by a rational method—a method dependent on the part their inhabitants are willing or disposed to take in public affairs—should not be passed over while we are adverting to this recent and practical attempt to establish proportional representation, and the objections which it elicited.

It cannot be too often repeated that the constant statement that the author has neglected or ignored the local character of representation is entirely a mistake. He has sought, on the contrary, to develop the activity of our local system more completely than ever, making local divisions, as elsewhere said, "facilities and not fetters" of political action. He proposes for this purpose first, to determine the number