In the meantime, though
the suggestion, for the present, may not be a practical one, it will
serve to mark what is best in principle, and enable us to judge of the
eligibility of any indirect means, either existing or capable of being
adopted, which may promote in a less perfect manner the same end. A
person may have a double vote by other means than that of tendering
two votes at the same hustings; he may have a vote in each of two
different constituencies: and though this exceptional privilege at
present belongs rather to superiority of means than of intelligence, I
would not abolish it where it exists, since until a truer test of
education is adopted it would be unwise to dispense with even so
imperfect a one as is afforded by pecuniary circumstances. Means might
be found of giving a further extension to the privilege, which would
connect it in a more direct manner with superior education. In any
future Reform Bill which lowers greatly the pecuniary conditions of
the suffrage, it might be a wise provision to allow all graduates of
universities, all persons who have passed creditably through the
higher schools, all members of the liberal professions, and perhaps
some others, to be registered specifically in those characters, and to
give their votes as such in any constituency in which they choose to
register; retaining, in addition, their votes as simple citizens in
the localities in which they reside.
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