Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/269

 and from which, notwithstanding their business may employ them at a distance, they can scarcely be said now to be permanently removed. Under a system of individual independence, fall scope would be given to every local attachment,—a regard which, if it exists at all, must be of free and spontaneous growth. Scotland would not complain of neglected interests, for every Scotchman, wherever his lot in life had cast him, would, in the choice of his representative, turn with filial love to the land of his sires. Ireland would complain of no cold disregard, for it would find friends in every spot in which the warm-hearted and unchanging faith of her sons, and the exquisite loveliness of her daughters, had won affection.

It is obvious that causes arising out of country, of property, and of every species of actual or possible association, would all operate materially on the votes which would be given in the metropolis and in other populous cities. To a large number of persons, the success of the local candidate would be a matter of less importance than that of some candidates for distant places, in which they may feel a greater interest. The desire and temptation to achieve a party triumph would be encountered by feelings and motives more wholesome and genuine. Instead of local interests being neglected, they will receive, by the accession of voluntary strength from without, greatly increased impulse and power; the impediments which merely local jealousies create being at the same time softened or removed.

It will be seen that the system of individual independence is consistent with the most perfect devotion to local objects, whilst, on the other hand, a geographical or territorial system is perfectly inconsistent with individual independence. The geographical system constrains every man's will, and destroys all personal independence. On the other hand, the power of voting for whom he thinks proper, permits every man to make the place in which he lives, or in which his