But what he could not do
would be done for him by the unsuccessful candidates and their agents.
Those among the defeated who thought that they ought to have been
returned would, singly or a number together, employ an agency for
verifying the process of the election; and if they detected material
error, the documents would be referred to a Committee of the House
of Commons, by whom the entire electoral operations of the nation
would be examined and verified, at a tenth part the expense of time
and money necessary for the scrutiny of a single return before an
Election Committee under the system now in force.
Assuming the plan to be workable, two modes have been alleged in
which its benefits might be frustrated, and injurious consequences
produced in lieu of them. First, it is said that undue power would
be given to knots or cliques; sectarian combinations; associations for
special objects, such as the Maine Law League, the Ballot or
Liberation Society; or bodies united by class interests or community
of religious persuasion. It is in the second place objected that the
system would admit of being worked for party purposes. A central organ
of each political party would send its list of 658 candidates all
through the country, to be voted for by the whole of its supporters in
every constituency. Their votes would far outnumber those which
could ever be obtained by any independent candidate.
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