My voice may be just now a solitary one, and is only able to display its protest for a second on the monopolized hoardings; to-morrow it will be obliterated by the numerous quack placards with which you are familiar. Pompous abstractions, such as the "Public," and the "Country," will be invoked by interested time-servers and blind followers of routine, as authorities for unjust oligarchic government, and the great mass of people, either too busy, too selfish, or too lazy for reflection, will accept the juggle and submit to the wrong. And yet here—speaking where the great farce of our representative system finds its most telling illustration—surely it should be possible to arouse some public spirit, and to embody it in definite action. What is the parliamentary representation of the enormous population at this end of London? In the metropolitan boroughs of Hackney and the Tower Hamlets there are 70,000 electors who return four Members of Parliament. I can show you another 70,000 Electors, who, apparently for no other reason than that they live in constituencies which are manageable, return eighty Members of Parliament!
Is there any special virtue in the resident of a small borough that he should possess a hundred times, and in some instances two hundred times the Parliamentary power that the resident in a large city has? Do we find more intelligence or public spirit prevailing in a pocket borough than in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, or London?
It is the small boroughs which are notoriously corrupt or servile. This is almost proved by the number of election trials which refer to them. The politics of the representative of Shaftesbury have been shown to depend entirely upon the caprice of a rich old lady who owns more than half the houses of the town. Let me reveal to you the character of another borough with which I am acquainted, situated in one of our southern counties. An election agent, intimate with the borough, being consulted as to the prospects of a Liberal candidate, wrote a letter in reply, from which I am permitted to select the following passages. He said:—
"In 1865 an Independent Liberal came forward and was received with a perfect ovation, he was cheered to the echo in every liberal sentiment he uttered. The resolution in his favour was carried without a word of dissent, but when he left the hall, small groups of voters were outside discussing the situation, and at length one acting as spokesman for the rest, approaching the candidate, touched his hat and said 'I beg your pardon, Sir, but what about the sugar?' The candidate replied that he had no sugar; as a consequence of this niggardly spirit, while his Conservative and Whig opponents obtained nearly 200 votes apiece, he was only able to reckon 25 votes …… At the general Election of 1865, a section of Liberals adopted
