the cry for working-class representation. It is the master manufacturers who agitate for the enfranchisement of their own workmen. The classes whose immediate interests are most clearly opposed, who are constantly and of necessity driving unpleasant bargains with each other, who often are at bitter feud, are on this subject at one. The capitalist heads the movement of the citizen; he is sometime more clamorous for the rights of labour than the labourer himself. The explanation is simple. The capitalist and the labourer have a united interest—a common object—in this matter. They wish to push forward the present seats of their common industry into the places now occupied by the mouldering remains of past industry. When a great manufacturer says at a West Riding meeting, “I wish to alter the Constitution, so that the working classes around me should be represented,” he means that undoubtedly very sincerely, but he means also, and more sincerely, because half consciously, “We—I, and such as I—ought to have more power. The stationary South must no longer govern the advancing North.”

‘Examined by the grave tests of sound philosophy, it cannot be denied that the whole new world of the North has its grievance as well as the artizan part of that world. Neither has such a place in the community as it ought to have. The effect of the Act of 1832 was to lessen the powers of the working classes in the country: the Act of 1832, though it did something to remedy the inequality between North and South—though it gave something to the new and took something from the old—did not adjust the balance even in the inequality it stood then; it did not transfer enough for a just rectification at that time, much less did it adjust matters as they should stand now that, after thirty busy years, the claimant has achieved such vast progress, and the possessor has plainly made so little. A good scheme of reform would both increase the power of what we must roughly but intelligibly call “the North,” at the same time that it gave some power to the whole working classes, though denying them the whole power.

‘We would propose to effect both these objects by the following means. Transfer a certain considerable number of members from insignificant boroughs,—from the well-known boroughs which have uniformly figured in every schedule of proposed disfranchisement,—to the great seats of industry, and in those seats of industry, and there only, lower the franchise, so as to admit artizan classes. This would give the necessary representation to the working classes, and it would give them only that necessary representation. Being only possessed of a certain number of seats, they could not rule the country, they could not impose on it their enthusiasms, their prejudices, or their fancied interests. Their members would be only one sort of members out of many sorts. They would contribute an element to a Parliament; they would not elect a Parliament. At the same time, this plan would cure the now faulty division between the more progressive part of England and the less progressive. The proposed transfer would give to those who ought to have, and take from those who ought not to have; and this is what is wanted.

‘It may be justly objected that this plan would throw the representation of the great seats of industry, of the most intelligent part of the country, into the exclusive power of the least intelligent inhabitants in those places. But we would meet that objection. We would give to each of these great cities with low suffrage as many as three members, and allow all voters to give their three votes to any one candidate. This would give the rich and cultivated one member at least; for they would always be a large minority, and any minority greater than a fourth is by this plan sure of a vote.

‘It may also be objected that this plan is an unjust plan. It gives, it may be said, a vote to an operative in borough A, and denies a vote to a precisely similar operative in borough B. But there is no injustice when we examine the matter. No one has a right to a political power which he will use to impair a better man’s political power. The real injustice would be to give votes to all the working classes, for then, in substance, all the better classes, the more instructed classes, the more opulent classes, would have no votes at all. Supposing this selection of special constituencies to be the best mode of admitting the operative to a limited share of power, we need not fear the accusation of its injustice. It will be for the excluded operative to suggest some better plan for giving his class some power, and not giving them the whole power. Till he has given us a better scheme, we may rightfully act on what we think best. And, unquestionably, the operative in the unselected is not injured by the enfranchisement of the operative in the selected place. We take from him nothing; only we do not see our way to give him that which we see our way to give to another man.