The plurality of votes
must on no account be carried so far that those who are privileged
by it, or the class (if any) to which they mainly belong, shall
outweigh by means of it all the rest of the community. The distinction
in favour of education, right in itself, is further and strongly
recommended by its preserving the educated from the class
legislation of the uneducated; but it must stop short of enabling them
to practise class legislation on their own account. Let me add, that I
consider it an absolutely necessary part of the plurality scheme
that it be open to the poorest individual in the community to claim
its privileges, if he can prove that, in spite of all difficulties and
obstacles, he is, in point of intelligence, entitled to them. There
ought to be voluntary examinations at which any person whatever
might present himself, might prove that he came up to the standard
of knowledge and ability laid down as sufficient, and be admitted,
in consequence, to the plurality of votes. A privilege which is not
refused to any one who can show that he has realised the conditions on
which in theory and principle it is dependent would not necessarily be
repugnant to any one's sentiment of justice: but it would certainly be
so, if, while conferred on general presumptions not always infallible,
it were denied to direct proof.
Plural voting, though practised in vestry elections and those of
poor-law guardians, is so unfamiliar in elections to Parliament that
it is not likely to be soon or willingly adopted: but as the time will
certainly arrive when the only choice will be between this and equal
universal suffrage, whoever does not desire the last, cannot too
soon begin to reconcile himself to the former.
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