of those who are without its pale, than any other absolute, uncontrolled, and irresponsible authority. Looking at the place which representative institutions are apparently destined to fill in the govemment of mankind, it becomes of the highest importance to consider whether means cannot be found to eradicate the vice in their constitution which deprives the state of the benefit of the judgment—it is to be feared of a large number—of the most calm and dispassionate, as well as of the most instructed and thoughtful of its people. The problem is, how to render representation in fact what it is in name,—to make it universally truthful, and to give to the best elements in every constituency their best and most perfect expression.
The founders of our parliamentary system,—if that appellation can be justly conferred upon any particular men in any age,—did not contemplate, and could not provide, for the difference of political opinion to be evolved in the progress of civilisation. Yet, on the other hand, they certainly did not contemplate a state of things in which the will of a vast proportion of those whom they entrusted with the franchise would be wholly disregarded. It is remarkable that the writs require the returning officers to send the knights and burgesses to Parliament “with full and sufficient powers;”[1]—a form of expression which students of common law know is inconsistent with the existence of a body some of whom repudiate the person whom the others have nominated, and refuse to concur in investing him with such powers. It is probable that the idea of the constitution and unanimity of the jury entered into the conception of its framers.
The restricted vote, in the Reform Act of 1867, is, no doubt, open to several objections. It operates very partially in reaching only a few constituencies; in the far greater number it leaves the evil untouched. Whilst the law recognises, in a measure,
- ↑ Brady, Histor. Treat., Lond., 1777, p. 54. Hallam's Middle Ages, Eng. Const., c. 8, part 3.
