Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/363

Rh ous action between co-existing interests which would not be likely otherwise to take place, or to continue uninterrupted. Speaking of the mode of voting adopted in this Bill, Mr. Mill, in his work on Representative Government, said, “Of all modes in which a national representation can possibly be constituted, this one affords the best security for the intellectual qualifications desirable in the representatives. At present, by imiversal admission, it is becoming more and more difficult for any one who has only talents and character to gain admission into the House of Commons. The only persons who can get elected are those who possess local influence, or make their way by lavish expenditure, and who, on the invitation of three or four tradesmen or attorneys, are sent down by one of the two great parties from their London clubs as men whose votes the party can depend on under all circumstances. On Mr. Hare's system, those who did not like the local candidates would have the power to fill up their voting papers by a selection from all the persons of national reputation on the list of candidates, with whose general political principles they were in sympathy. Almost every person, therefore, who had made himself in any way honourably distinguished, though devoid of local influence, and having sworn allegiance to no political party, would have a fail chance of making up the quota; and with this encouragement such persons might be expected to offer themselves hitherto undreamt of. Hundreds of able men of independent thought, who would have no chance whatever of being chosen by the majority of any existing constituency, have by their writings or their exertions in some field of public usefulness made themselves known and approved by a few persons in almost every district of the kingdom; and if every vote that should be given for them in every place should be counted for their election, they might be able to complete the number of the quota. In no other way which i seems possible to suggest would Parliament be so certain of containing the very elite of the country. Not solely through the votes of minorities would this system of election raise the intellectual standard of the House of Commons. Majorities would be compelled to look out for members of a much higher calibre. When the individuals composing the majorities would no longer be reduced to Hobson's choice, of either voting for the person brought forward by their local leaders, or not voting at all; when the nominee of the leaders would have to encounter the competition not solely of the candidate of the minority, but of all the men of established reputation in the country who were willing to serve; it would be impossible any longer to foist upon the electors the first person who presents himself with the catch-words of the party in his mouth, and three or four thousand pounds in his pocket The majority would insist upon having a candidate worthy of their choice, or they would carry their votes somewhere else, and the minority would prevail. The slavery of the majority to the least estimable portion of their number would be at an end. Had a plan like Mr. Hare's by good fortune suggested itself to the enlightened and patriotic founders of the American Republic, the Federal and State Assemblies would have contained many of those dis-