The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal/Introduction to the first edition

by Thomas Hare

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The subject of political representation now assumes an aspect entirely different from that which it presented in the discussions that preceded the Act of 1832. The question was then between a partial representation, the inequalities of which were in their general effects balanced by many compensating influences, and a scheme which, dispensing with most of such influences, made the representation more direct and real, and established it on a wider basis. That Act, which was the offspring of a political compromise, extended the application of the representative principle, without excluding, and not intending to exclude, many imperfections and irregularities. The anomalies which remained were chiefly owing to the attempt to give effect to two principles which the arrangements of our electoral system made it impossible to reconcile,—the representation of interests and the representation of persons. Some constituencies were retained, framed or modified, upon the supposition that they would, in all circumstances, support what were conceived to be special interests. The idea of the constituency as the constituted exponent of an interest having been once received, excluded the idea of personal representation within that constituency, and therefore led to the consequence,—that if persons not governed by the prevailing interest found their way within the prescribed limits, it was necessary, in pursuit of the representation of interest, to exclude such intruders, as far as it could be done, from the electoral power. As the law, however, did not, and could not, adopt, as an electoral qualification, a test of fidelity to the special interest contemplated, it is not found possible to exclude from the constituency some who are guided by other motives, and form an antagonistic class. The electoral bodies which are regarded as the exponents of special interests are thus exposed to internal conflicts, which render their action more or less uncertain.

In the mobile and susceptible condition of population and society at this day, it is impossible not to observe the purely speculative character of all conclusions founded upon what the permanent interests of the inhabitants of a particular district may be,—upon what they will themselves consider them to be, or upon what their majority may resolve. In a revision of our electoral system, all those who would found the Parliamentary strength of interests or classes upon the basis of constituencies for for their support, should consider with what degree of safety they can rely upon a body of electors within any certain area remaining permanently faithful to the principles by which they may be at present guided. So long as any definite or indefinite number of persons shall be attached to those principles by the force of mental association or material interest, their support may be reckoned upon ; but if it be a further condition of rendering this support, that such persons shall be so numerous within any geographical limit as to preponderate and overpower all opposing forces within it,—the security to be derived from their attachment is certainly not strengthened. The sources of permanent support are weakened by the introduction of a condition which does not increase sympathy,—which may be impracticable,—and which is of no value unless it can be used as a means of disregarding or setting at defiance the opinions of a minority. The territorial condition must be one of two things,—a source of strife if it succeeds,—or a cause of weakness if it fails. It is deserving of the most profound consideration of all who desire to perpetuate any definite political principle, whether it is possible to insure it for a geographical ascendancy; and whether there are any means of promoting its maintenance so certain and lasting as would be found in a consistent adoption of the sole and simple principle of personal representation.

In framing the constitution, there has been little of that kind of aid which physical science derives from experiments. Government is necessarily established before the question of circumscribing its powers can arise,—and powers once possessed are not often willingly given up. Every step by which a class has been admitted to a new participation in power has been either a concession or a conquest; and the moment of gaining it has been a time of action, and not of speculation. It may have been so far experimental as to have arisen from the sense of some prominent defect in the existing institutions calling for amendment. “Many minds, long ages, and various events have contributed to the advance” of our representative institutions. The successive labourers worked under the unconscious influence of the idea of representation,—though “only seeking to remedy the injustice of some particular case, or prevent the recurrence of some particular evil.” But, “when the idea of any institution becomes distinctly apprehended, we may proceed with a firmer step and more assured success towards its full development. We have the guidance of a principle; we have the clue to what had appeared a tangled maze. Our notions may be termed theoretical, but the theory is a condensation of all the practicality of the past.”^[1] The full display of the principle of representation “is as much the function of the future, as the origination and progress of the principle has been the achievement of the past. We have here our test of the venerable and the obsolete; of the use and the abuse; of what is to be abolished, and what retained. We have a guiding star for the work of reformation.”^[2]

In considering the process of interesting greater numbers in the constitution by investing them with political rights, we meet with the fact that the proportionate interest felt by the constituency appears to diminish as the numbers of the constituency increase. It is found that in the larger constituencies about fifty-five per cent, and in the smaller ones about ninety-two per cent., of the electors recorded their votes on the occasion of contests at the same general election.^[3] This divergence from representation is still more apparent when the active elements,—the fifty-five per cent.,—are further reduced by taking from them the minority,—the voice of which is extinguished, and which consists of about two-thirds,—leaving the numbers actually represented in the larger constituency as about thirty-three per cent. The unrepresented portion is not only great in numbers; but there is no doubt that in many populous boroughs it also contains the largest portion of the educated classes, of those to which, in every view of representative institutions, it is desirable that full weight should be given. It is therefore of paramount importance to discover, and if possible remove, the causes which tend practically to exclude from representation so extensive and valuable a part of the electoral element; and this is now of especial urgency, as every step in the extension of political privileges, whilst it has the effect of changing the class in which power resides, increases at the same time the disturbing causes that interfere with and are evidently obstacles to true representation.

A perfect representation is plainly inconsistent with the exclusion of minorities; but the subject of representation would be very inadequately conceived, if it were regarded as a mere question between majorities and minorities. The formation of electoral majorities and minorities is no more the natural means of arriying at political representation than it would be a natural result of any other association that it should be divided into two parties, one perpetually labouring to counteract the wishes of the other. The order and the occupations of mankind,—the distribution of population, and the supply of its necessities, are all provided for by physical and moral laws operating on the diversities of nature and of character which are found amongst men. These differences preserve the harmony and the vitality of social life. In political sentiment there is not less variety than in the other motives of human conduct; and abstractedly it would be no more likely that the political opinions of the electors of a borough should fall into two or three antagonistic divisions, than that they should be composed of twenty, fifty, or a hundred distinct views or conceptions. The dissimilarity would be much more probable than the similarity. Opinion and action in politics would be as various as opinion and action in other sciences, if there were not causes that enter into political bodies, and create a disturbed and unhealthy movement, provoking antagonistic divisions.

On the occasion of adverse desires in a society composed, of many free agents, the majority must necessarily decide; but in the formation of a representative body, the purpose is that the body thus to be created, and not the constituent body, is to be intrusted with the power of decision. If that were the function of the constituent body, there would be no necessity for appointing the representative. It is, consequently, by the majority of the representative body that the decision must be pronounced. It is that majority which speaks for the whole, and is irresistible. It may be likened to an engine of enormous power which crushes all opposing forces. The election is the process by which this engine is constructed; but it is not necessary to the efficiency of the engine that the same overpowering force should have been employed in the process of its construction. It is when the engine is formed that we require its power to be exercised;—whilst the engine is being made,—it is the engine we want, and not the power.

The conduct of men may be actuated by two different motives, one, the desire to do that which is believed to be right,—the other, the desire to do that which shall be attended with direct success. A parliamentary representative is to be chosen by two or three thousand electors, and opinions and interests are greatly divided;—two questions may present themselves to every elector,—the one,—who is the person best fitted by character and talent to fill an office in the duties of which the interests of the nation, to an incalculable extent, may be involved,—and the other, who will my co-electors be most likely to choose? In other words,—what is right, and what will succeed?

It may be answered, that abstract right, when considered by a prudent man, resolves itself into a question of expediency and practicability,—that it is a case of compromise;—and that, therefore, the second question is that which such a man is justified in asking. It is true that in all political action we must consider what is expedient and practicable. This is the well-known and just defence of party action. Singly, one man can do little, and yet, by combining his efforts with others having similar objects, he may accomplish much. But it is necessary to consider under what conditions an individual is placed when he is called upon to yield up his own opinions of rectitude and prudence. To what extent is the will at liberty? That which is a free concession amongst persons who have associated voluntarily, to pursue the same objects and the same means,—as the partners or shareholders in a company, or the members of a particular society, may be, and more commonly is, entirely different, when the persons collected together are infinitely various in character, disposition and object, and their association is compulsory and not voluntary. In such a case the question ceases to be of the nature of a compromise, and becomes one of mastery. Instead of yielding to the opinion of others with whom the elector has been led to associate by the existence of some mutual basis of sympathy or harmony, he is, in the case supposed, obliged, in order to succeed, to give up his own opinions to those who form the most numerous portion of his co-electors, the greater number being, as one of the conditions of nature, the lower in capacity, and he is obliged also to take into account all the disturbing and corrupting influences which may prevail. He is,—to refer again to the analogy of party,—in the position that a member of Parliament would be in,—if, instead of attaching himself to the party with which he sympathises and is content to act,—he found himself indissolubly bound to a section,—say of fifty other members whom he has had no part in selecting,—and unable to take any step in which he cannot persuade the majority of the fifty to concur. If he does not remain inactive, his objects must be lowered to, and measured by, theirs. This condition is parallel to that of the elector who is forced to act on the answer to the second question, instead of the first and true one.

The necessity of obtaining a majority involves the necessity of creating a party, adopting a party name, and putting forward some party tenet, or dogma, to all of which the majority must lend itself. It is not usually the political tenet which has caused the party, but the party which has created the tenet. In none of these things, any more than in the choice of their representative, can the members of the majority usefully ask themselves what they ought to do,—the only practical question is, what will be successful? Thus, the process of creating the majority demoralises most of those who compose it: it demoralises them in this sense, that it excludes the action of their higher moral attributes, and brings into operation the lower motives. They are compelled to disregard all individuality, and, therefore, all genuine earnestness of opinion, to discard their political knowledge,—their deliberate judgment,—their calm and conscientious reflection,— all must be withdrawn or brought down to a conformity with those who possess the least of these qualities.^[4] The same injurious influences, in a measure, operate on the minorities, whenever they make a decided stand for the purpose of contesting a seat. The most intelligent will have submitted to the most numerous, except that, in the minorities, the greater apprehension of defeat may have led the more numerous classes within it to raise their standard of choice in order to increase their hopes of success.

Whilst this process of deterioration is going on throughout those who compose the active parties, a result even more fatal to the design of true representation is produced on another large, intelligent, and more scrupulous class of persons, who feel no disposition to make themselves the instruments of giving effect to the views of others with whom they have no common object or sympathy. These, therefore, take no part in the business of choosing thoe who are nominally to represent them. We find, as it has been observed, that, in the large constituencies, nearly half of the electors are, for all useful purposes, in the same position as if they were disfranchised.

A system which forms the electoral body into adverse parties,—arrayed under formal names which are themselves exaggerations calculated to excite hostility where none really exists,—has thus the effect of preventing the expression of the true and individual opinions of the members who compose either party. It lowers the force of thought and conscience, reduces the most valuable electoral elements to inaction,—and converts the better motives of those who act, into an effort for success and a mere calculation of the means of accomplishing it. It is not therefore surprising that we hear of the informities of representative institutions, and that many persons should be unable to look forward without terror to the aggravation of their more obvious evils by any large extension of some of the causes which produce them.

If these consequences be inevitable—if in the progress of constitutional government we are exposed to the danger of excluding from their just share in representation the more educated and intelligent classes,—and of paralysing in political life the action of the infinite varieties of disposition and sentiment which are found in society,—if there be no means of making representation a reality,—the infirmity of the institution must be borne. It is useless to lament that for which no remedy can be found. It must be accepted as the lot, and part of the discipline, of humanity. But, at least, every effort of the understanding should be brought to bear on the question, whether the representative system be not capable of more perfect development than it has yet received. No time perhaps was ever more favourable to the inquiry. The inconsistencies and anomalies of the existing system have been long felt, and successive governments have addressed themselves to its improvement. The patriotism of every class has been challenged, and at no former period has so general a disposition been evinced to abandon long-cherished traditions and opinions, and adopt such a revision of the representative system as may appear most likely to be conducive to the public good.

If, after the construction of the representative body shall have received the aid of all that thought which the importance of the subject imperatively demands, it be held impossible to render it a perfect expression of the sense of the people, or more than of the will of a multitude of detached majorities, that should be recorded as a fact, and received as a distinct constitutional principle. If it be a necessity of government that a multitude of petty majorities,—for petty they must be compared with the nation,—shall exclusively elect the representative assembly, let it be the declared and acknowledged form of the constitution. It is due to the more thoughtful and scrupulous of the electoral body, as well as to the minorities, and not more to them than to the precepts of truth and justice, that the principle should be distinctly propounded,—and it is very different from the principle of true representation,—that not the representatives of the people or of all those who possess the suffrage,—but, representatives chosen by the resolved and active majorities of certain arbitrarily-formed electoral bodies,—are to be consulted in making the laws. The whole people may be bound to obey the laws thus made, but that does not make the nominees of a part the representatives of all. It may be claimed as a homage to what is just and true, that it be not falsely imputed to any class of persons that they are represented by men whose views and opinions are utterly repugnant to their own. The member elected in every constituency may be returned as representing so many as shall vote for him, but not as representing those who do not vote for him, or who oppose him. The democracies of former times asserted their power, but did not assert an untruth. The necessity of obedience to the law, wherever the power of making it may reside, is easily seen: if it be concluded that there is a necessity for depositing the power in the combined majorities, the nation must bow to that authority,—but there can be no necessity that our institutions should be founded on an untruth or a fiction. They should stand on substance and reality. Let the representation be declared to be what it truly is, and not what it is not.

It will be observed, that the causes which operate to render the franchise valueless or ineffectual to large and intelligent classes, are causes peculiar to an advanced state of civilisation and we may properly seek, in the increased knowledge which accompanies social progress, the means of removing the impediments to representation which it discovers. Representation itself is a matter of daily occurrence, and common necessity. It is the vicarious performance of duties which cannot be personally executed. It intervenes in commerce, in jurisprudence, in education, and in a thousand other forms. In a multitude of circumstances people are compelled to place themselves and their interests in the hands of others. The exercise of individual judgment and deliberation suffices for all these purposes; and if, in the choice of their parliamentary representatives,—the electors were freed from the embarrassing restrictions by which their action is incumbered, there is no reason to doubt that they would employ the same care and caution as that with which they select persons to fill other fiduciary or vicarious offices.

The object of this Treatise^[5] is to show that the attainment of a perfect system of personal representation is not opposed by any difficulties inherent in the subject; and that such a system is not only consistent with the due and just representation of every class and interest in the kingdom, as well as of the public which comprises all, but that it affords the most permanent and certain mode of representing and expressing the special views and opinions of all interests and classes; and that it also goes very far to remove, even if it does not entirely obviate all the sinister influences which have been hitherto found to prevail in the collection of the suffrages of the electors. It will be seen that personal representation, to be perfectly carried out, must be founded upon the basis of individual independence; that such independence may be obtained without departing from any of our traditional forms of electoral incorporation,—and that it even affords peculiar facilities for giving greater scope and expansion to such local and traditional combinations. The electoral arrangements which are proposed require no operation that cannot readily be executed by instruments which the administrator will always have at his command; and they prescribe no duty, which any person of ordinary capacity is not competent to perform. It is only necessary to resort to those common aids which education and science now afford,—the knowledge of letters, which was not implied in times when the election was made by a show of hands,—and the means of rapid conveyance and transport, which were not possessed by former generations.

With a view, to avoid any expressions which might be vague or indeterminate, to render the proposal definite and precise, and enable its practicability to be readily and distinctly considered, the whole scheme has been wrought into the form of a supposed electoral law, the clauses of which are distributed amongst the several chapters,—following the respective branches of the subjects to which they relate, and in which are explanations of the principle, the purpose, and the operation of every clause. A table has also been introduced, showing the entire law, and referring to the pages in which every clause will be severally found.

If, by the means which are here proposed, or by any which are better and wiser, an electoral system can be established, which, in the work of forming a representative body, shall succeed in calling into action all the thought and intellect of the nation, the effect would be to create a new object of inquiry and study, extending over a field of which we know not the bounds. All attempts to engage society in potential conflicts for abstract principles would be thenceforth vain, and statesmen would seek to build their fame on something more

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1. Westminster Review, vol. i, p. 10, n.s.
2. Id., p.17
3. Edinburgh Review, vol xcv. pp. 279, 280.
4. It is by no means uncommon to hear persons state that they vote for a particular candidate, not from any appreciation of his merits, but to exclude some other candidate to whom they are more averse.
5. The author first publish the principle of the suggestions contained in this Treatise soon after the general election of 1857, in a pamphlet intituled The Machinery of Representation (Maxwell, Bell Yard). A note to the same pamphlet, and, subsequently, a second edition, was published in the same year, the details being materially altered, and brought much nearer their present shape. The communications which the author from time to time received, led him to believe that the scheme had excited interest in the minds of many who had given much thought to this and kindred subjects; and that it was generally considered to stand in need of development more in the way of showing its practicability, than of proving the value of the objects which it was directed to attain.