In the
absence of these, the nature of a person's occupation is some test. An
employer of labour is on the average more intelligent than a labourer;
for he must labour with his head, and not solely with his hands. A
foreman is generally more intelligent than an ordinary labourer, and a
labourer in the skilled trades than in the unskilled. A banker,
merchant, or manufacturer is likely to be more intelligent than a
tradesman, because he has larger and more complicated interests to
manage.
In all these cases it is not the having merely undertaken the
superior function, but the successful performance of it, that tests
the qualifications; for which reason, as well as to prevent persons
from engaging nominally in an occupation for the sake of the vote,
it would be proper to require that the occupation should have been
persevered in for some length of time (say three years). Subject to
some such condition, two or more votes might be allowed to every
person who exercises any of these superior functions. The liberal
professions, when really and not nominally practised, imply, of
course, a still higher degree of instruction; and wherever a
sufficient examination, or any serious conditions of education, are
required before entering on a profession, its members could be
admitted at once to a plurality of votes. The same rule might be
applied to graduates of universities; and even to those who bring
satisfactory certificates of having passed through the course of study
required by any school at which the higher branches of knowledge are
taught, under proper securities that the teaching is real, and not a
mere pretence.
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