A day and
place should be appointed at which Peers desirous of voting should
be present, either in person, or, in the usual parliamentary manner,
by their proxies. The votes should be taken, each Peer voting for only
one. Every candidate who had as many as ten votes should be declared
elected. If any one had more, all but ten should be allowed to
withdraw their votes, or ten of the number should be selected by
lot. These ten would form his constituency, and the remainder of his
voters would be set free to give their votes over again for some one
else. This process should be repeated until (so far as possible) every
Peer present either personally or by proxy was represented. When a
number less than ten remained over, if amounting to five they might
still be allowed to agree on a representative; if fewer than five,
their votes must be lost, or they might be permitted to record them in
favour of somebody already elected. With this inconsiderable
exception, every representative Peer would represent ten members of
the Peerage, all of whom had not only voted for him, but selected
him as the one, among all open to their choice, by whom they were most
desirous to be represented. As a compensation to the Peers who were
not chosen representatives of their order, they should be eligible
to the House of Commons; a justice now refused to Scotch Peers, and to
Irish Peers in their own part of the kingdom, while the representation
in the House of Lords of any but the most numerous party in the
Peerage is denied equally to both.
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