127 Members. Population more than 13 Millions. Property, upwards of 444 Millions of Pounds Sterling t. "Favourable as this result may appear, the form in which our tables are drawn up has taken very considerably from its magnitude. In the counties, and in many of the cities and a number of the boroughs, where the franchise is widely diffused, the members may be regarded in the light in which we have considered them, as both virtually, and really the representatives of the people; but in the smaller boroughs, where the franchise is limited, the members have a very slight connexion with the people, and in many instances even the nominal electors are ignorant of their persons! Had we reckoned, as we were fully entitled to do, the lords and commoners and corporations which nominate such members, as their only constituents, the balance of population in favour of Reform would have been very much greater than we have stated it to be. But in this, we have given the Anti * One Member for Wales not returned. It appears by a Parliamentary Paper, lately published, by order of the House of Commons, exhibiting an account of Assessed Taxes paid by places, which, at present, return Members to Parliament, that fifty-seven Boroughs contributed during the last year only 11,217. 11s. 10 d., although these Boroughs return 113 Members, being on an average not 1007. for each Member!!-The constituents of the two Members for Westminster paid in the same year 303,420l. 15s. 9d., or twenty-seven times the aggregate of the sum paid by these fifty-seven Boroughs.If Property were to be taken as the test of representation, it would follow that the City of Westminster would have the right to return three thousand and fifty-one Members, according to this calculation! COMPARATIVE NUMBER OF MEMBERS, &c. 551 Where a fraction occurs in a Reformers the benefit of the doubt. division, it has been added to them. have been unknown, or suspected, all that have voted against Reform, -all that have spoken against it,-have been placed on their side. "To Scotland applies, à fortiori, the remark just made respecting the smaller boroughs of England. Had there been even the slightest feeling of mutual respect between the people and those who return the representatives of that country, Reform would have triumphed in its tens and hundreds of thousands. But not only do the electors not sympathize with the people, but many of them are not connected, in the most remote degree, by residence or by property, with the country which they are legally authorized to rule and outrage! "To the Scottish and Irish tables we have not, for want of proper and authentic documents, been able to add the value of the property in the different returning districts." For the above valuable Table (here slightly modified), the author is indebted to the Spectator Newspaper, July, 1831. Being, in the aggregate, 658 members to a population of 21,750,000, or one for each supposed division of 33,055 persons. |