CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE NATIONAL WILL

"The virtue, the spirit, the essence of the House of Commons, consists
in its being the express image of the nation."--BURKE.


"It is necessary," said Burke, "to resort to the theory of government
whenever you propose any alteration in the frame of it, whether that
alteration means the revival of some former antiquated and forsaken
constitution or state, or the introduction of some new improvement in
the commonwealth." The following chapters are a plea for an improvement
in our electoral methods, and although the suggested improvement and the
arguments with which it is supported are not new, yet it is desirable,
in the spirit of Burke's declaration, to preface the plea with some
reference to the main feature of our constitution.

_The spread of representative government_.

The outstanding characteristic of the British Constitution, its
fundamental principle, is now, if not fully so in Burke's time, the
government of the nation by its chosen representatives. Indeed, so much
is this the case that, in spite of the continued presence of elements
which are far from representative in character, originating in that
distant past when commoners had little, if any, political influence, the