Page:Whether the minority of electors should be represented by a majority in the House of Commons?.djvu/10

been so contrived, that the majority of electors are placed under the government of the minority.

If we lift up the gaudy drop-scene of the British Constitution, we shall readily perceive how this is done. The great mass of electors receive nominally a vote, but they have no voice in the selection of a candidate, and while the claim to a vote is impeded by many obstructions, it is found, when established, to command in the great towns but a fraction of the representative power which is conceded to voters who live in small boroughs or rural constituencies.

Minority Government.

In the following statement lies our impeachment of the existing electoral system—

30,000 Electors in small constituencies	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	elect 44 Members of Parliament,
546,000 Electors in large boroughs	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	elect 35  ——   ditto, ——
		therefore
30,000 Electors out-vote 546,000 Electors..

Then take this illustration:—At the last General Election, 18,000 Electors at Manchester, who recorded their votes in favour of a candidate, failed to return him, while another 18,000 Electors who live in petty boroughs or rural constituencies^[1] were permitted to seat no less than 30 legislators! The result of this constitutional system is that we are governed by a minority. The splendid outcome of our parliamentary system is that a minority of Electors appoint a majority of Members of Parliament, and the majority of Electors appoint their minority to be steadily out-voted and beaten, and all the while statesmen and journalists vie with one another in national brag, and tell the deluded people that they are blessed above all other peoples in their institutions and their laws. And the story is circulated so persistently that at last, as people are ultimately convinced by a perpetual advertisement, they think that it is even so.

For say a footish thing bat oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly), the same thing
Shall pass at last for absolutely wise.
And not with fools exclusively.

1. "Mr. Dawson Darner, the member for Portarlington, once across the Irish Channel, may ride himself and all his supporters to St. Stephen's in a couple of onmibuses. Mr. Darner's rapporters number no more than 76! The men who returned Mr. Disraeli are individually more than six times as powerful as the unsuccessful supporters of Mr. Jacob Bright. The voters at Petersfield and Brecknock are each more than fifty times as strong as the electors of Manchester."—Newcastle Chronicle.