It is greatly to be feared that an opinion, or belief, exists, and is widely spread amongst the higher and influential classes, that by rendering parliamentary elections expensive, they confine the choice of the electors to persons of wealth; and that, in this restriction, there is some chance of security, which would not otherwise be obtained. The ready assent to the clause for legalising the payment of travelling expenses to county voters, was, there is no doubt, due to this feeling. It was not adopted from any regard for the voters: the kindness was intended to be shown to the wealthy candidate, for whom, in such cases, they would necessarily vote, rather than for him who should be indisposed to expend some thousands of pounds, and possibly embarrass himself and his family in the contest.[1] It is impossible to give credit to an affectation of regard to the hard case of a county voter living at a distance, and unable to pay the expense of coming to the poll, when it proceeds from the mouths of those who have not yet discovered the hardship of excluding the resident inhabitant, for whom Mr. Locke King has for several years vainly been seeking the franchise. If the aristocratical elements in the different political parties be actuated by a feeling such as this, they are under the influence of an error, than which none will be more fatal to their chief objects. Even if they succeeded in excluding all but the wealthy, the result would be only to raise up against themselves the most dangerous of all rivals. It is the wealthy demagogue, who, by availing himself of all the aids which money can give to indulge the follies or the vices of the electors, will command success. The making of political power, the monopoly or the spoil of the
- ↑ So long as the candidate himself, and the customs of the world seem to regard the function of a member of Parliament less as a duty to be discharged than as a personal favour to be selected, no effort will avail to implant in an ordinary voter the feeling that the election is also a matter of duty, and that he is not at liberty to bestow his vote on any other consideration than that of personal fitness."—Mill, Considerations on Resentative Government, c. 10.
