UNIVERSITY REPRESENTATION.
IT can hardly be said that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have fulfilled the special object for which they have been given Representatives. They stand alone, with the kindred exception of the University of London, among English Constituencies ; but the Members they have sent to Parliament have not, to anything like the same extent, been marked out from their fellows. The motive which the Legis- lature must be supposed to have had in view in allowing them to retain this character under successive Reform Acts, is the desire of introducing into the House of Commons a class of Members whom it is desirable to have there, and who would not otherwise get there. The names of such men will at once occur to every one's mind. They may be Liberals or Conservatives, but in each case they will be some- thing more than Liberals or Conservatives, something wider, and also something rarer. The sitting Members for the two Universities are certainly not of this character, and even among the most eminent of their predecessors, there have been very few who could make good their claim to it. Perhaps the nearest approach that has been made to it has been in the person of Sir William Heathoote, at Oxford, and of Mr. Walpole, at Cambridge. Both these were very much above the standard of ordinary county Members, and possessed merits which would have been no special recommen- dation in the eyes of county electors. But then they had other merits which would have commended them to county .electors, so that it cannot be said that they
brought into the House of Commons qualities that would not otherwise have found their way there. There are three views of University Representation, of which one is of recent origin, one is quite or nearly extinct, and one is not avowed, though in practice it is the most accepted of all. The first of these is the Academical view. It is the view invoked in support of Professor Stuart's candidateship at Cambridge, and it was appealed to some years since when Professor Henry Smith con- tested Oxford. It assumes that Oxford and Cambridge ought to be represented by men who are associated with the special work of the places ; and that as in both cases the work of the place is mainly teaching, they should, amongst other things, be distinguished teachers. This seems to imply that the Universities have a more direct and pressing need to be represented in Parliament than seems to us to be made out. In any equally large constituency, the representatives would in a measure be chosen with a view to the business which the constituency might have to transact in Parliament, the gas and water Bills in which it would be interested, the railways which it might wish to have constructed. But except when a University Reform Bill is under discussion, there is no Parlia- mentary business in which the Universities are specially in- terested; and even if there were, there is no more need to give them Members to protect those interests than there is to give Railways Members to protect Railway interests.
Every Member who is a Railway Director can be trusted to do this, and every Member who belongs to a Univer- sity is pretty sure to have his say on the rare occasions when University matters are before Parliament. It is only, therefore, in the character of a man whom it is specially important to have in the House of Commons, and specially difficult to get there, that the Academical candidate has a claim on the constituency. Sometimes, as now with Professor Stuart, this quality will be united with active participation in Academical work ; but in other cases, the two will be altogether separate. Everybody who knows Oxford or Cambridge can probably recall men of great Academical distinction who would have been wholly out of place in Parliament. What is wanted in the ideal University candidate is Academical distinction of a kind which is known and valued beyond the limits of the University, and attainments of a kind which will presumably make his opinion on politics worth having. Grote and Bagehot among the dead, and among living men, Sir Henry Maine, will serve as types of what we mean.
The extinct, or almost extinct, view of University Repre- sentation is that which made it a reward for politicians of the first rank who had taken good Degrees, or were specially dear to University men. Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone belonged to this type of University Members, but neither the sitting Members nor Mr. Raikes, though he is specially dear to Dr. Kennedy and much-beloved by Joint-Stock Com- panies, can claim to belong to it. Mr. Raikes, indeed, is a
singularly unfortunate candidate, for he does not even satisfy the requirements of what we have called the accepted view of University Representation. He is not fitted above other men
to be the mouthpiece of the Clergy, and this, after all, is what the Members for the two Universities have become. The Clergy may be said to be represented by the Bishops in the Lords, and by the Members for Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the Commons. We do not grudge them this addition to their Parliamentary weight, but it certainly cannot be justified by any plea, except that it exists, and that it does no harm. At least it does no direct harm, but if it be a good thing that the Universities should be represented in their true character, then an arrangement which entirely deprives them of representation in that character cannot be acquitted of doing harm indirectly. For the Clergy, taken as a body, are not likely to contribute any unusual element to the composition of the House of Commons. As a rule, those of them who take an interest in politics are rather stronger partizans than the laity. The Conservatives among them have a sense of being office-bearers in an institution which is specially open to attack, and the Liberals feel bound by that very fact to show that their political creed is in no way affected by their ecclesiastical position. Anyhow, whether it be or be not an advantage to give the Clergy this special representation, to associate it with the Universities is to deny the latter any proper representation at
all. It is an accident that the non-resident Members of Ox--
ford and Cambridge should belong so largely to one profession, but it is an accident which reduces the representation of the Universities to a mere name. The election of a Member of Parliament must always be a political act, and under no cir- cumstances should we expect to see Conservative Graduates voting for an eminent Liberal, or Liberal Graduates voting for an eminent Conservative. But in a better state of things, we might hope to see the Conservative and the Liberal candidates chosen from among the most eminent Members of the Uni- versity in each party. At present, the only place where this rule is at all followed is in the University of London. The most Con- servative graduate will admit that, so long as he must be re- presented by a Liberal, he cannot be better represented than by Sir John Lubbock.
As regards Oxford and Cambridge, the only means by which they can be made to fulfil the more general purpose which properly belongs to University Representation is to restrict the constituency. Before the Members can be invested with the specific character which ought to belong to them, the Electors must themselves be invested with it. Men will, as a rule, elect men like-minded with them- selves, and it is idle to expect a rector in the Midlands who has borne an active part in every county election for the last quarter of a century, to take a wholly different view of a candi- date's qualifications, when once in a way he is summoned by the party managers to vote in a University election, in right of his having taken a pass degree forty years ago. It would be just as reasonable to expect a country gentleman who was called to the Bar about the same time to make a good elector for the Inns of Court, supposing them to be created a constituency. What would be wanted in the latter case would be a body of electors who should comprise the actual Bar. What is wanted in the former case is a body of electors who shall comprise the actual University. The difficulty of constructing such a body is the fewness of the resident members; but this might be got over in two ways. The right of voting might be extended to all Graduate's who are, or have been, on the foundation of any College,—a qualification which would retain the pick of the existing constituency ; and each University might return one Member, instead of two.
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