The meeting at St. James's Hall, on Tuesday, presided over
by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, of the Birmingham Education League, which met to urge on the extension of household suffrage to the counties, and the redistribution of seats in proportion to popu- lation, was chiefly remarkable for the effort made by the working- men to support Mr. Hare's principle,—that there should be electoral districts of some magnitude, sufficient to give each group of electors several seats to fill up, with power to all electors resident within it, even though living in different quarters, to club their votes on any one man. Mr. Howell and Mr. Mottershed both supported this view, and no doubt the working-men who wish for the "Direct representation of Labour in Parliament" would find it the only one under which they could secure seats. It is remark- able that members of the class usually accounted the largest and the most favourable to sheer majorities should be led to support this thoroughly fair principle in their own interest. Mr. Cham- berlain of course, following Mr. Bright's violently prejudiced lead, thought the three-cornered boroughs an "unmitigated nuisance" that ought to be abolished, because it "frittered away the power of majorities." Once give us an equal number of seats for elec- toral districts of equal populations, and there is just as much equity in this complaint, as there is in the complaint that you "fritter away the power of majorities" by letting the minority speak out at all. There is a growing democratic party which prefers the representation of some, to the representation of all.
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