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acknowledging the success of these harangues, the impartial bystander will be inclined to say, with a late Prime Minister, "I stand in awe of the power of falsehood."

It seems probable that this country will be kept in a condition of political agitation and unrest until a franchise so widely extended as to be nearly universal has been established. The experience of universal suffrage in other countries is not encouraging, and able writers have suggested measures to neutralize, or at least to mitigate, the ill-effects of transferring political power from the educated to the ignorant and indigent classes of the community.

One remedy is the education of the people. On this subject a few words will be said hereafter.

The other remedy consists in some rearrangement of the electoral machinery, or even a reconstruction of the whole representative system. Assuming mere numbers to be

the basis of representation, various schemes have been proposed, which may be enumerated under the following queries:

Should the whole electoral body be allowed to divide itself arbitrarily, and elect?

Should there be electoral districts?

If so; what should constitute an electoral district ?

Should each district elect one member or more?

If more than one member, how many ? Here questions arise as to the limited vote, the plurality vote, the cumulative vote, and other intricate contrivances, which are called scientific by their ingenious inventors, and denounced as fanciful theories by impatient politicians.

Whether the present haphazard system of representation be retained, or another system substituted, the machinery of elections will always be so cumbrous and complicated that it will require to be regulated or guided by

skilled managers.

These managers will be party tools, selected, after much intrigue and local jealousy, to do the dirty work of politics. They will manipulate the electors, and, in communication with some central committee, consider how to win the seat in the House of Commons. The fitness of the candidate to be a member of Parliament is of course an entirely subordinate question.

The result will be that, in most cases, after all the trouble and expense of this electoral apparatus, from the registration to the final ballot, the system resolves itself into a circuitous mode of nominating members of Parliament by a small body of managers.

One effect of this system will be that a large proportion of sensible and moderate men will abstain from voting. They will be aware that, unless they vote according to the dictate of a managing committee, their votes will be thrown away.

That portion of the electors, whose calm

judgment and temperate disposition would supply a counterpoise to the violence of party warfare, will stand aloof; and the country will lose the beneficial influence of that body of men who are best qualified to weigh the value of antagonistic opinions, and to take a correct survey of the political horizon.

This is an evil which appears to be inseparable from a widely extended franchise.

CHAPTER X.

EDUCATION THE SAFEGUARD OF SOCIETY.

THE education of the people is now a national charge, and a recognized duty of the state. Various motives, religious, charitable and political, have contributed to this result. There is, however, some delusion as to the political effects of popular education.

Tocqueville, in his book on "Democracy in America," pointed out the dangers which threaten European civilization from the multitudes of needy and ignorant men who regard the institutions of civilized society as unjustifiable usurpations. He expressed a hope, although with some diffidence, that a system of education (in which he included a course of religious instruction) might

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