Until there shall have been devised, and until opinion is willing to
accept, some mode of plural voting which may assign to education, as
such, the degree of superior influence due to it, and sufficient as
a counterpoise to the numerical weight of the least educated class;
for so long the benefits of completely universal suffrage cannot be
obtained without bringing with them, as it appears to me, a chance
of more than equivalent evils. It is possible, indeed (and this is
perhaps one of the transitions through which we may have to pass in
our progress to a really good representative system), that the
barriers which restrict the suffrage might be entirely levelled in
some particular constituencies, whose members, consequently, would
be returned principally by manual labourers; the existing electoral
qualification being maintained elsewhere, or any alteration in it
being accompanied by such a grouping of the constituencies as to
prevent the labouring class from becoming preponderant in
Parliament. By such a compromise, the anomalies in the
representation would not only be retained, but augmented: this however
is not a conclusive objection; for if the country does not choose to
pursue the right ends by a regular system directly leading to them, it
must be content with an irregular makeshift, as being greatly
preferable to a system free from irregularities, but regularly adapted
to wrong ends, or in which some ends equally necessary with the others
have been left out.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209