How few of our members approach the ideal expressed by Edmund Burke in his address to the electors of Bristol:—­“Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of our nation, with one interest—­that of the whole—­where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.  You choose a member, indeed, but when you have chosen him he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament.”  It must be confessed, however, that Burke’s ideal is rather exalted; it is the duty of a member to make known the requirements of his district.  It is the ministry which is specially charged with looking after the interest of the whole and of resisting illegitimate demands.  But it cannot do so if its position is so insecure that it must purchase the support of the “parish pump” politician.

The only way to nationalize politics is to ensure that every electorate shall be contested on national issues by organized parties, and that every locality shall be represented on both parties.  The proposed system will provide this remedy.  In enlarged electorates each party will take good care that its candidates are men of local influence in the most important divisions of the electorate; therefore, sectional and local interests will be represented, but they will be subordinated to the interests of the whole electorate; and where there are a few large divisions the interests of each will more nearly coincide with national interests than where there are a large number of small divisions.  Besides, log-rolling will not be so easy between groups of representatives as among single representatives.

+Incentive to Bribery and Corruption.+—­We now come to a class of evils which to a large extent result from the fact that a few votes in each electorate decide whether a party gets all the representation or none at all.  Candidates are impelled, in order to gain support from every faction, to acts degrading to themselves and destructive to the moral tone of the people.  Foremost among these evils is the great incentive to bribery and corruption; it is manifested not only in direct expenditure at the elections, but also in promises of patronage and class advantages.  Direct bribery is perhaps worst in America; Professor M. Cook states, in a paper on “The Alarming Proportion of Venal Voters” in the Forum for September, 1892, that in twenty-one towns of Connecticut 16 per cent, of the voters are venal.  As Professor Commons remarks:—­“It is plain that the bribable voters themselves are adequate to hold the balance of power between the parties.  The single-membered district, therefore, places a magnificent premium upon bribery.”  In England the Corrupt Practices Act has done immense good:  nothing