Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/63

 as so much lumber, in order that both sides may come unencumbered to the trial of strength which is to determine the single issue—the possession of power. Such a result would be impossible if full play were given to the partialities which arise from individual character and sympathy, for these would be in constant rebellion against the tyranny of faction, and would moderate its influence even amongst those who might be subject to it. Every man, according to the degree in which he is intellectual, and possesses public spirit, would bring his talent and weight to the public aid, in the business of concentrating in the representative assembly a selection of the best minds of the nation, and the statesmen who shall have been proved by experience to be trustworthy; and the deposit of official power, from time to time, would be safely left to an assembly thus constituted, under the conditions which our parliamentary system imposes.

In the selection or choice of representatives we require the aid of the multitude of electors whose votes are rendered useless, and whose judgment is thus rejected. Instead of damping and extinguishing their patriotic zeal by destroying that hope of the utility of exertion which can alone keep it alive, every disposition to political action on the part of every worthy and sensible citizen should be encouraged and assisted. By making elections nothing but a question of adhesion to one of two or three parties, the standard of merit and qualification in the candidate is lowered to a bare question of party tests.

It has been seen that about half a million of voters are in this country incapable of securing a representation by any act of their own. The public loss is surely not trifling. To what a multitude of subjects of public and private interest have the thoughts and studies of large numbers amongst that half million of voters been directed! If we go through many of the streets and squares of the metropolitan boroughs, and form our conclusions of the intellectual rank of the inhabit-