Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/39

Rh thoughtful and scrupulous of the electoral body, as well as to the minorities, and not more to them than to the precepts of truth and justice, that the principle should be distinctly propounded,—and it is very different from the principle of true representation,—that not the representatives of the people or of all those who possess the suffrage,—but, representatives chosen by the resolved and active majorities of certain arbitrarily-formed electoral bodies,—are to be consulted in making the laws. The whole people may be bound to obey the laws thus made, but that does not make the nominees of a part the representatives of all. It may be claimed as a homage to what is just and true, that it be not falsely imputed to any class of persons that they are represented by men whose views and opinions are utterly repugnant to their own. The member elected in every constituency may be returned as representing so many as shall vote for him, but not as representing those who do not vote for him, or who oppose him. The democracies of former times asserted their power, but did not assert an untruth. The necessity of obedience to the law, wherever the power of making it may reside, is easily seen: if it be concluded that there is a necessity for depositing the power in the combined majorities, the nation must bow to that authority,—but there can be no necessity that our institutions should be founded on an untruth or a fiction. They should stand on substance and reality. Let the representation be declared to be what it truly is, and not what it is not.

It will be observed, that the causes which operate to render the franchise valueless or ineffectual to large and intelligent classes, are causes peculiar to an advanced state of civilisation and we may properly seek, in the increased knowledge which accompanies social progress, the means of removing the impediments to representation which it discovers. Representation itself is a matter of daily occurrence, and common necessity. It is the vicarious performance of duties which