Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/85

 tion than to the classes who have greater opportunities of knowledge, and more leisure for thought. They might then usefully proceed to consider whether any machinery exists, or has been proposed to them, which can so effectually secure the protection of every interest, as by giving to those who are attached to every species of property and industry the power of voluntary association. The distinctive interests commonly regarded as the broadest, are those of the landed and commercial classes. The county constituencies were supposed to be the strongholds of the former, and the borough constituencies of the latter. The ulterior view of the general subject of representation—by which the county franchise is regarded as intended to provide, not so much for the representation of the inhabitants of the counties, or of places not within the units of boroughs, as for the purpose of giving weight to the landed and agricultural interest, has shown the county population of two-thirds of its political weight. The hypothesis that the county electors did not represent themselves, but were the agents, or retainers, of the landowners, has placed them in such a position of inferiority as to give to 66,000 electors in the county no more weight in the State than 22,000 electors in a borough. In the last chapter, mention has been made of the social changes which have opened the country to the population of the towns, and of the amount of the intelligence and wealth which has thus been transferred from the cities and boroughs to the counties. If, in pursuit of the fancied, but most mistaken, interests of the landowners, the attempt to keep up the geographical distinction between the representation of the boroughs and counties be obstinately persevered in, and be successful, the electoral