by ballot, how are the House of Commons to deal with petitions? When it is intended particularly that a petition should attract the attention of the House of Commons, some member bears witness to the respectability or the futility of the signatures; and how is it possible, without some guides of this kind, that the house could form any idea of the value and importance of the petition?
These observations apply with equal force to the communications between the representative and the constituent. It is the Radical doctrine that a representative is to obey the instructions of his constituents. He has been elected under the ballot by a large majority; an open meeting is called, and he receives instructions in direct opposition to all those principles upon which he has been elected. Is this the real opinion of his constituents? and if he receives his instructions for a ballot meeting, who are his instructors? The lowest men in the town, or the wisest and the best?—But if ballot is established for elections only, and all communications between the constituents on one side, and Parliament
B 4
