better one than Lord John Russell’s.  It was embodied in a Municipal Bill for an infant city—­that of Adelaide—­drawn up by no less a person than Rowland Hill, then Secretary for the Colonisation Commissioners.  I believe it was a deplorably bad town council for Birmingham that led his acute mind to ponder how to secure the rights of minorities, as it was the enormous expense of a correspondence he entered into on the subject of the coal-tax grievance that led him to make the calculations and to devise the system by which letters could be carried all over the kingdom for a penny.”

“Well, and what does Rowland Hill say about the minorities that ye care muckle for?” asked Sandy Pringle.  “We hae a’ great respect for Rowland Hill, and what he has to say on sic a subject should weel deserve a hearing at ony rate.”

“He had an arrangement by which a quorum of the citizens could plump for one member of council, giving additional force to their vote.  As they voted for one instead of eighteen, their vote was worth eighteen.  By concentrating their vote they proportionally increased the power of it.”

“Oh! we ken that plumping aye makes the vote mair valuable,” says Sandy.

“Simply because your one vote is an advantage to your member, which is not given to any other; but this system gives a much greater reward for concentrating your vote.  In Lord John’s case the thing was incomplete, for unless you have the power of giving your two votes to one man, a minority of a third cannot get in a member.  It is the cumulative power given by Rowland Hill that secures that minorities will not be extinguished.  This subject will receive my careful attention, if I am returned for the burghs, for I consider it by far the most important question of the day, and if I can get the working classes to sympathize with me, I hope for success in time.  Also a revision of the partnership laws, so as to afford every facility for working people to co-operate with each other, for it is only by that means that much can be done to improve their condition.  Those Rochdale pioneers are going on most satisfactorily with their co-operative store, which they are now extending to other undertakings of a greater magnitude, and I hope soon to see hundreds of similar associations in Great Britain and Ireland.  But we want more freedom for limited liability companies, instead of so many difficulties being thrown in their way by over-legislation.  I do not want to treat working people as children, but to encourage them to help themselves.  I have had to work hard myself, and I know what it is.”

“We will lippen to you,” said Sandy Pringle, “and even though in some points we may not see things exactly as ye do, we want a man, an’ no a mere thing to hae a name, an’ be coonted like thae Fortescues and Turnbulls they are puttin’ up.”

“Little good, little ill, like a spale amang parritch, was that chap Trummle,” said Jamie Howison.