ABSTRACT
In 1796, when Edmund Burke wrote the above words, less than one in twenty of the British population had the vote. Qualified by nothing more than the ownership of property, this minority perceived itself to be justified in representing the interests of the less affluent, less educated majority. Such justification for electoral oligarchy was referred to as virtual representation. It rested upon the assumption of political trusteeship: the notion of ‘an aristocracy of virtue and wisdom governing for the good of the whole nation’ (Pitkin 1967: 172). Burke estimated that no more than 400,000 people possessed sufficient leisure time for discussion, access to the means of information and sufficient wealth to place them above menial dependence. ‘This is the British publick’, declared Burke, meaning that this minority was entitled to representative status in virtue of the general public. The claimed necessity for representative trusteeship was itself predicated upon the alleged incapacity of the mass of the public to reason for themselves. Burke conceded that ‘the most poor, illiterate and uninformed creatures upon earth are judges of practical oppression’ but this does not enable them to understand the cause of or remedy for their problems. From discussion of such matters they
ought to be totally shut out; because their reason is weak; because when once aroused, their passions are ungoverned; because they want information; because the smallness of the property, which
they individually possess, renders them less attentive to the measures they adopt in affairs of moment.
