the course of their public conduct.* Thus, an aggregate body of efficient statesmen is obtained, a salutary control is exercised over their proceedings, and a convenient means is secured of bringing before the Legislature, as occasion may arise, the wishes and the wrongs of the several districts. Parliament," said Mr. Burke to his constituents, "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." These views of the great political philosopher are fully supported by the language of our ancient writs, and by our early constitutional usage. The early writs require the election of the more discreet, or more worthy, or more able persons; or by some similar expression they indicate that the person sent will be required to exercise his discretion. They expressly enjoin that the persons sent shall have full power, both for themselves and for their community, to treat with the King and the magnates, or to do and to consent to what shall then and there be ordained of common council. In those early political assemblies which preceded the formation of the House of Commons, the vote of each assembly, or of the majority of it, was binding upon the entire class to which it belonged. The Charter of John expressly provides that the business of assessing aids and scutages is to proceed, although all those who * See Rationale of Political Representation, 138. have been summoned may not be present. The grants, whether of Lords, or of Knights, or of Clergy, or of citizens and burgesses, or of the Barons of the Cinque Ports, except when the city of London is treated as a separate power in the state, were always made not for a particular person, or diocese, or county or town, but for the whole community of the particular class. When, therefore, the various lay communities coalesced the united body acquired the aggregate powers of its component parts; and as each member was not only entitled, but required, to vote upon each question, so the decision of the United Assembly was binding upon each and all the communes of the kingdom. They came, as they said to Edward the Third, for the whole community of the realm. Accordingly we find, in a petition of the Commons on the subject of wages of members, in the third year of Henry the Fifth, a distinct assertion that the Knights were elected by, and represented as well those within the franchises as those within the rest of the several counties, and that, when so elected, they came to the Parliament for the whole of the counties.* This principle is the source of several rules of Parliamentary law. One of these rules is that the electors cannot, either before or after his election, bind their representative by any instructions. It has never been doubted that all proceedings of the House of Commons would be valid, notwithstanding the unanimous and avowed disapproval of every elector in the kingdom. It has even been expressly denied that any subject may petition Parliament, although he may petition the King; and there is no doubt that the modern system of political petitioning was altogether unknown in our earlier constitutional practice.† Nor has a constituency any remedy, during the continuance of Parliament, against any proceedings of its representative, however deeply it may be aggrieved by them, and however publicly and strongly it may express its disapproval. A member is under no legal obligation to consult with his constituents, or to inform them of his opinions or his intentions, or to pay any attention to any expression of their wishes. They have chosen him as their representative and plenipotentiary during that Parliament; and while that Parliament lasts, they can neither revoke their appointment nor restrict, by any directions, the powers that they have conferred. In the discharge of their duty they have cast upon the person whom they elected as their representative the duty of advising the King to the best of his judgment. That responsibility the law will not allow him to evade by rendering himself the mere mouthpiece of the sentiments of others. Again, the same person cannot represent, at the same time, two places. If the House of Commons were merely a Congress of Deputies, there could be no reason why one person should not appear for any number of clients or hold any number of proxies. But such is not the Constitution of Parliament. It is a National Council, for which, from motives of convenience, local machinery of elections is used. The representatives of the various parts of the country do indeed assemble; but it is as a portion of the Council of the Crown that they meet. Each representative is, as I have already said, the contribution of his constituents to that council. If, then, the same person were to act as the representative for two places simultaneously, the aggregate amount of such contributions would be by so much diminished. This principle also assists us in determining the question whether pledges as to their votes upon specific political questions should be required from candidates. The practice of exacting such pledges appears to have been connected with the great political movement which began to manifest itself at the close of the first decennium of George the Third. It first attracted public attention at the general election of 1774. It was then encouraged by Wilkes, and at the following election was denounced by Burke. Under the exciting questions of modern times and the increasing interest in public affairs the practice has become common, and has even been defended on constitutional grounds by Sir T. E. May.* It is, however, beyond dispute that the law does not take any notice of any such pledge: and that such a promise can bind the person who gives it only in conscience and honour, but not otherwise. Such a promise could only in contemplation of law be regarded as an attempt to evade that principle which exempts the representative from all coercion in his communication with his constituents. It seeks to establish indirectly that influence the direct exercise of which the policy of the law will not allow. But it may also be observed that, if it be wrong for a minister to pledge himself to give or to abstain from giving certain advice to the King irrespective of the actual exigencies of the public service, a similar restraint cannot be rightly imposed upon a member of the highest council of the Crown. A person thus bound by promises, whether he be a servant of the Crown or one of the national representatives, is fettered in the performance of his duty. The minister, who is not necessarily a member of the House of Commons, may fail in his duty only to the Crown; but the representative, since he has a double function, will fail in his duty both to the Crown and to his constituents. A representative in Parliament is not sent there to register his own or his constituents' local prejudices or selfish objects. He must hear before he decides. The theory of the Constitution as it is expressed in the writs of summons requires him to form his opinion "of Common Council," that is to say, after he has associated with other representatives, and after he has received all the information that the Crown is able to supply. He may find in altered circumstances or on more accurate knowledge good reason to modify or even to reverse the opinions which he expressed to his constituents. Thus Sir Robert Peel declared in 1819, on the Resumption of Cash Payments, and again in 1846 on the Repeal of the Corn Laws, that his opinion was changed not by theoretical arguments but by the evidence of practical men or by the altered state of circumstances.* Even while the representative retains that opinion, he may find that it is expedient to accept a compromise. It is, in short, his duty to advise the King not upon abstract political principles, but upon matters of state as they arise. It is impossible that he should advise freely unless he be himself free. He should not therefore be required to bear upon his honour a burthen which the policy of the law steadily refuses to impose. Independ ence of § 5. Although the structure of the electoral organ may be adequate, and although the nature of its functions may be rightly understood, its action will be useless, or even prejudicial, unless it be undisturbed by external interference. The Legislature should, Commons. in the words of the Bill of Rights, lawfully, fully, and freely represent all the estates of the realm. The places, therefore, which should return representatives, and the persons in those places by whom the representatives * See Sir G. C. Lewis, Administrations of Great Britain, 430, note. |