Constitutional history -- Great Britain; Constitutional law -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Politics and government
elements which we now require, because we already know all the rest.
This doctrine was well known to our ancestors. They laboured to give a
CHARACTER to the various constituencies, or to many of them. They
wished that the shipping trade, the wool trade, the linen trade, should
each have their spokesman; that the unsectional Parliament should know
what each section in the nation thought before it gave the national
decision. This is the true reason for admitting the working classes to
a share in the representation, at least as far as the composition of
Parliament is to be improved by that admission. A great many ideas, a
great many feelings have gathered among the town artisans--a peculiar
intellectual life has sprung up among them. They believe that they have
interests which are misconceived or neglected; that they know something
which others do not know; that the thoughts of Parliament are not as
their thoughts. They ought to be allowed to try to convince Parliament;
their notions ought to be stated as those of other classes are stated;
their advocates should be heard as other people's advocates are heard.
Before the Reform Bill, there was a recognised machinery for that
purpose. The member for Westminster, and other members, were elected by
universal suffrage (or what was in substance such); those members did,
in their day, state what were the grievances and ideas--or were thought
to be the grievances and ideas--of the working classes. It was the
single, unbending franchise introduced in 1832 that has caused this
difficulty, as it has others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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