Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/78



The registries of the United Kingdom contained, in the year 1857, the names of 1,227,274 voters. This may afford a datum for estimating a probable quotient. When the sympathies of all who are disposed to employ any measure of thought on political duties shall be so strongly appealed to, the number of voters exercising their franchise will doubtless exceed anything we have hitherto known. Still the votes polled will fall considerably short of the votes registered. To explain the calculation, the voters who poll at a general election, under this system, are supposed to be equal to the number on the registry in 1857, and this total is supposed to be divided by 654, the number of members in the House, and the quotient is 1876. The quotient necessarily varies as the numbers of the voters vary, and the quotient, so varying, will be always the number of voters, who, belonging to what constituencies they may, but being unanimous in their choice, may be permitted to elect a representative.

The difficulties which will immediately suggest themselves are,—how this unanimity is to be obtained amongst persons of infinite variety of character and temperament, and how a scheme of such a nature is to be worked out? Doubtless, if there were but one or two, or a few of these bodies of 1876 voters, or whatever may be from time to time the number of the quota, it would be impossible to secure unanimity; but the difficulty vanishes when the minorities amount to half a