ABSTRACT
Universal suffrage is open to all, or almost all, of the same objections as those which apply to personal representation; but with those who talk most loudly about it, it has this absurdity in addition—that it never means what the words convey, or what its advocates intend. The meaning which the words convey would include all persons of every kind, whatever might be their sex, age, or condition. Mr. Bright’s schedules, in point of principle, are so nearly similar to Mr. Roe-buck’s theories, that the same objections which apply to the one are quite as applicable to the other also. Both remind us of Mr. Canning’s joke at the crazy schemes of Tom Paine and his disciples:— ‘Where each fair burgh, numerically free, shall choose its members by the Rule of Three.’ The tendency of members since the Reform Act has been, unfortunately, to become representatives of their respective constituencies rather than representatives of the entire kingdom.
