tuency, lavishness becomes a popular policy; and popu

other in bringing forward Here is a councillor who,

larity-hunters vie with each new and expensive projects. having fears about his next election, proposes an extensive scheme for public gardens a scheme which many who disapprove do not oppose, because they, too, bear in mind the next election. There is another councillor, who keeps a shop, and who raises and agitates the question of baths and wash-houses; very well knowing that his trade is not likely to suffer from such a course. And so in other cases: the small direct interest which each member of the corporation has in economical administration, is antagonized by so many indirect interests of other kinds, that he is not likely to be a good guardian of the public purse.

Thus, neither in respect of the deputies chosen, the efficient performance of their work, nor the avoidance of unfit work, can the governments of our towns be held satisfactory. And if in these recently-formed bodies the defects are so conspicuous, still more conspicuous are they where they have had time to grow to their full magnitude: witness the case of New York. According to the Times correspondent in that city, the New York people pay "over a million and a half sterling, for which they have badly-paved streets, a police by no means as efficient as it should be, though much better than formerly, the greatest amount of dirt north of Italy, the poorest cab-system of any metropolis in the world, and only unsheltered wooden piers for the discharge of merchandise."

And now, having glanced at the general bearings of the question in these minor cases, let us take the major case of our central government; and in connection with it, pursue the inquiry more closely. Here the inherent faults of the representative system are still more clearly dis

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played. The greater multiplicity of rulers involves greater cumbrousness, greater confusion and delay. Dif ferences of class, of aims, of prejudices, are both larger ir number and wider in degree; and hence arise dissensions still more multiplied. The direct effect which each legislator is likely to experience from the working of any particular measure, is usually very small and remote; while the indirect influences that sway him, are, in this above all other cases, numerous and strong; whence follows a marked tendency to neglect public welfare for private advantage. But let us set out from the beginning—with the constituencies.

The representative theory assumes that if a number of citizens, deeply interested as they all are in good government, be endowed with political power, they will choose the wisest and best men for governors. Seeing how greatly they must suffer from bad administration of public affairs and benefit from good, it is considered self-evident that they must have the will to select proper representatives; and it is further taken for granted that average common sense gives the ability to select proper representatives. How does experience bear out these assumptions? Does it not to a great degree negative them?

We find several considerable classes of electors who have little or no will in the matter. Not a few of those on the register pique themselves on taking no part in politics-claim credit for having the sense not to meddle with things that do not concern them. Many others there are whose interests in the choice of a member of Parliament are so slight, that they do not think it worth while to A notable proportion, too, shopkeepers especially, care so little about the result, that their votes are deter mined by their wishes to please their chief patrons. In the minds of a yet larger class, small sums of money, or

vote.

even ad libitum supplies of beer, out weigh any desires they have to use their political powers independently. Those who adequately recognize the importance of honestly exercising their judgments in the selection of legislators, and who give conscientious votes, form but a minority; and the election usually hangs less upon their wills than upon the indirect and illegitimate influences which sway the rest.

Then, again, as to intelligence. Even supposing that the mass of electors have a sufficiently decided will to choose the best rulers, what evidence have we of their ability? Is picking out the wisest man among them, a task within the range of their capacities? Let any one listen to the conversation of a farmer's market-table, and then answer how much he finds of that wisdom which is required to discern wisdom in others. Or let him read the clap-trap speeches made from the hustings with a view of pleasing constituents, and then estimate the penetration of those who are to be so pleased. Even among the higher order of electors he will meet with gross political ignorancewith notions that Acts of Parliament can do whatever it is thought well they should do; that the value of gold can be fixed by law; that distress can be remedied by poor-laws; and so forth. If he descends a step, he will find in the still-prevalent ideas that machinery is injurious to the working-classes, and that extravagance is "good for trade," indices of a yet smaller insight. And in the lower and larger class, formed by those who think that their personal interest in good government is not worth the trouble of voting, or is outbalanced by the loss of a customer, or is of less value than a bribe, he will perceive an almost hopeless stupidity. Without going the length of Mr. Carlyle, and defining the people as "twenty-seven millions, mostly fools," he will yet confess that they are but very sparely gifted with wisdom.

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That these should succeed in choosing from out their number the fittest governors, would be strange; and that they do not so succeed is manifest. Even as judged by the most common-sense tests, their selections are absurd, as we shall shortly see.

It is a self-evident truth that we may most safely trust those whose interests are identical with our own; and that it is very dangerous to trust those whose interests are antagonistic to our own. All the legal securities we take in our transactions with each other, are so many recognitions of this truth. We are not satisfied with professions. If another's position is such that he must be liable to motives at variance with the promises he makes, we take care by introducing an artificial motive (the dread of legal penalties) to make it his interest to fulfil these promises. Down to the asking for a receipt, our daily business-habits testify that, in consequence of the prevailing selfishness, it is extremely imprudent to expect men to regard the claims of others equally with their own;all asseverations of good faith notwithstanding. Now, it might have been thought that even the modicum of sense possessed by the majority of electors, would have led them to recognize this fact in the choice of their representatives. But they show a total disregard of it.

While the theory of our Constitution, in conformity with this same fact, assumes that the three divisions composing the Legislature will severally pursue each its own ends-while our history shows that Monarch, Lords, and Commons, have all along more or less conspicuously done this; our electors manifest by their votes, the belief that their interests will be as well cared for by members of the titled class as by members of their own class. Though, in their determined opposition to the Reform-Bill, the aristocracy showed how greedy they were, not only of their legitimate power, but of their illegitimate power

though by the enactment and pertinacious maintenance of the Corn-Laws, they proved how little popular welfare weighed in the scale against their own profit-though they have ever displayed a watchful jealousy even of their smallest privileges, whether equitable or inequitable (as witness the recent complaint in the House of Lords, that the Mercantile Marine Act calls on lords of manors to show their titles before they can claim the wrecks thrown on the shores of their estates, which before they had always done by prescription)—though they have habitually pursued that self-seeking policy which men SO placed were sure to pursue; yet constituencies have decided that members of the aristocracy may fitly be chosen as representatives of the people. Our present House of Commons contains 98 Irish peers and sons of English peers; 66 blood-relations of peers; and 67 connections of peers by marriage: in all, 231 members whose interests or sympathies, or both, are with the nobility rather than the commonalty.

We are quite prepared to hear the doctrine implied in this criticism, condemed by rose-water politicians as narrow and prejudiced. To such we simply reply, that they and their friends fully recognize this doctrine when it suits them to do so. What is the meaning of their wish to prevent the town-constituencies from predominating over the county-ones; if it does not imply the belief that each division of the community will consult its own welfare? Or what plea can there be for Lord John Russell's proposal to represent minorities; unless it be the plea that those who have the opportunity will sacrifice the interests of others to their own? Or how shall we explain the anxiety of the upper class to keep a tight rein on the growing power of the lower class, save from their consciousness that bona fide representatives of the lower class would be less regardful of their privileges than they are