230 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



in the members of the several Town and County Councils, 

 together with those of the District and Parish Councils 

 now in existence. The members of these four classes of 

 councils will constitute in each county an electoral body 

 which will be truly representative of the people, since it 

 will have been chosen on the widest and most liberal 

 franchise to which we have yet attained. It will be 

 sufficiently numerous and independent to avoid all sus- 

 picion of cliquism or wire-pulling, and it will be sufficiently 

 intelligent and sufficiently interested in public affairs to 

 make a sound and wise choice of members to sit in the 

 Upper Chamber of the Legislature. Of course, as a rule, 

 the representative peers for each county would be chosen 

 from among candidates owning property in the county and 

 residing in it, since these would be best known to the 

 voters. But as, in some few cases, none of the residents 

 qualified to be candidates might come up to the required 

 standard of eminence and ability, it would probably be 

 advisable to leave the choice of the electors entirely free. 

 A great advantage of such a mode of election as is here 

 proposed would be, that it could be carried out with the 

 minimum of trouble and expense, and without any of the 

 publicity and excitement of an ordinary election. The 

 clerks to the several councils would send the names and 

 addresses of the councillors to a central office ; each of them 

 would receive by post a voting paper, which they would 

 return in the same manner. No canvassing would be per- 

 mitted, since the acts and general conduct, rather than the 

 verbal promises, of the candidates would decide the elector's 

 choice. Such elections would offer an excellent opportun- 

 ity for a trial of the method of proportional representation 

 advocated by John Stuart Mill, and in a modified form by 

 Mr. Courtney and Lord Avebury. This system would 

 ensure that, where the two political parties are not very 

 unequally divided, the minority would obtain a represent- 

 ative. Each party in the county would, therefore, feel 

 itself to be fairly treated, and the House of Lords would 

 thereby acquire an amount of stability which would invest 

 it with that character of a regulating power which an 

 Upper House ought to possess. 



