Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/266

 of adequately representing such a heterogeneous combination of men. The result is inevitable. The crowd of electors is persuaded by the more cunning to apply some test, which affords no more proof of the fitness of the candidate for a legislator than if they had taken him by weight or measure,—something which the most ignorant man may answer. The small degree in which he differs from the lowest and commonest order of mind amongst them may be his recommendation. The chance of any candidate of a higher order of intelligence is so small, that no man will waste his fortune upon it; and the very considerable number of components of the electoral body, who, with delight, would have chosen a superior man, have no opportunity of judging by comparison, or of making a better selection.

It can hardly admit of doubt that, if our statesmen would offer to the metropolitan electors the opportunity of adopting, in the metropolitan constituencies alone, the system proposed in this treatise, it would be regarded as an incalculable boon by a very large number of the intelligent inhabitants; probably by almost all, excepting those who are able by the present arrangements to acquire some profit, or some undue advantage over their fellow-voters. Let us suppose that all the eighteen members are to be elected at one poll, and that the candidates are not liable to be charged with any election expenses beyond a deposit of £50 apiece. There would be probably not less than forty or fifty candidates, including men of eminence in science and literature, in political life, in the army or navy, and at the head of various departments of manufacture and trade. Every elector would have this vastly increased extent of choice, and selection, and in the method of contingent voting may place on his voting paper the names of all, or any, that he may approve of, rejecting as many as he pleases. The whole number of votes being divided by eighteen will give the quota, and the excess being struck off from the more popular candidates would be carried to the next