The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-14 00:00:00

Sixthly.—A list of all the counties with 60,000 inha-
bitants and upwards, and the extent to which their re-
presentatives would be increased, at the rate of one to
every additional 60,000 of the population.
[The writer then gives a list of boroughs in England
and Wales under 10,000 inhabitants, which return
Members, which are in all 81, returning 133 Memberb.
Also a list of boroughs in England and Wales with
from 10,000 to 20,000 inhabitants—they are 45, and
return 69 Members. Also a list of boroughs in Eng-
land and Wales with upwards of 20,000 inhabitants—
they amount to 59, and return 110 Members.
There are several other similar tables regarding the
counties, and the result is that in the English cities
and boroughs there is but one Elector to every seven-
teen of the gross population.]
Elector. Population.

In the English Counties 1 to every 24
In the Welsh Boroughs ......••• 1 ... 17
In the Welsh Counties
In the Scotch Boroughs
In the Scotch Counties
In the Irish Boroughs
In the Irish Counties
115
•
Elector. Population.
In Great Britain there is ......
In Ireland
In the United Kingdom .., 1 ... 29
In the United Kingdom( Boroughs) 1 ... 21
++( (Counties) 1 ... 50
In England there is one representative to every 27,794
of the gross population ; in Wales, one to every 27,799 ;
in Scotland, one to every 44,624 ; and in Ireland, one
in every 73,975. _ .

In the United Kingdom there are 309 cities and bo-
roughs which return 403 representatives; and 114 coun-
ties which return ')53. .

- - -
The whole county population of Great Britain and
Ireland, exclusive of cities and boroughs, is 17,473,750,

with one elector to every 37 persons.
The borough and city population is 6,655,952, with
one elector to every 18 persons,
If the whole population of the United Kingdom were
equally divided into electoral districts, there would
be 36,519 persons for every representative.
I do not intend to pledge myself to the entire accu-
racy of these statistics. I consider them (though cor-
rect in the main) of less importance than the principle
of the measure I recommend. They are merely in-
troduced to illustrate its practical operation. Before
any reform so extensive is likely to be adopted, there
will probably be a new census of the population ; when
the distribution of the surplus Members of Parliament
might be made with as perfect accuracy as is compati-
ble with a system of representation so antiquated and
anomalous as ours.

Here, then, is a complete representative chaos—a sys-
tem which recognizes no principle at all. Here, in Eng-
land, are Buckingham and Dorchester, Evesham and
Guildford, Honiton and Huntingdon, all with less than
4,000 inhabitants, each of which returns two Members to
Parliament ; while Birmingham and Bristol, Lambeth
and Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Southwark, all
with a population of from 100,000 to 200,000, return
no more, individually, than these wretchedly small
places ; and to make the discrepancy greater still, there
are Finsbury and Marylebone, the Tower Hamlets and
Westminster, each with a population of from 200,000 to
300,000, which return no more Members to the Legis-
lature than Buckingham or Dorchester, Guildford or
Huntingdon.
Among the English counties there are nearly as great
discrepancies ; there are Rutlandshire East Suffolk,
and Westmorland, with less than 40,000 inhabitants
each, which return two Members; while West Glou-
cester, North Lancashire, West Suffolk, East Surrey,
and East York, with from 200,000 to 300,000 inha-
bitants only return the same. Beyond this there are
South Devonshire, and South Lancashire, with from
300,000 to 400,000 inhabitants, each of which return
no more. So that the two last-mentioned places with
upwards of 700,000 inhabitants are met, and politically
extinguished on the threshold of the Legislature, by
two small counties with a population of less than 45,000
inhabitants—in fact, by less thin a fifteenth part of
their number. Verily this is, what Wellington once
said of it, " the most perfect system of representation
that human ingenuity could devise 1"
None of the boroughs in Ireland with less than 20,000
inhabitants, return more than one Member to Parlia-
ment. There are nineteen boroughs, and the Univer-
sity, with a population of less than 10,000 which return
twenty-one Members ; there is Portarlington, with
3,400, and Kilkenny with 23,740, both of which return
the same number. There is Cork with 107,000, and
Dublin with 250,000, which return only two each.
But the greatest discrepancies, as it regards Ireland,
appear in the amount of its county population and the
number of Members they send to the Legislature, con-
trasted with that of the English county population and
their proportion of representatives. As for instance ;
Inhabitants. Members.
Rutlandshire, with 19,385 returns
East Suffolk
Westraoreland
Cardiganshire
Huntingdonshire
Moutgomershire 3i,041
66,48.5
2
, I North Northumberland... 66,204
While Cork
Galway 694 287 ... 2
Tipperary 482,903
Antrim 314,608
Mayo 366,576
Tyrone 302,493
Downshire 352,571

These are most terrible discrepancies ; quite enough
in all reason to s arrant the Irish in demanding a repeal
of the Union.

I come now to Scotland. There are fewer discre-
pancies in the Scotch system of representation, though
it is by no means exempt. It has fourteen electoral
districts composed of several places grouped toge-
ther, which cannot be said to send more than their
share, if we once admit the principle of this grouping
small towns together. Edinburgh with 162,156 inha-
bitants, and Glasgow with 202,426, either of which
only return two Members, might upon this principle
have their representatives increased, in the one case to
six, and in the other to eight, without arrogating any
undue proportion.
In the Scotch county representation there arc greater
discrepancies than in the towns :
Buteshire with 14,200,, Peebleshire 10,600, Selkirk
6,800, send one Member each ; while Aberdeenshire
with 177,600. Ayrshire 145,100, Perthshire 142,900,
only send ono each.
It the former three small counties were at once dis-

franchised, their Members transferred to the three
largest towns, and the old electors of the small counties
allowed to vote for the shire immediately adjoining, it
would tend to reduce the Scotch representative system to
something more of rationality and fairness than at present.
The result of the application of my proposed rule
to the English small boroughs in the first place, would

be that eighty-one boroughs with less than 10,000
inhabitants, and which return 133 Members, would be
politically annihilated ; or, put into schedule A. Forty-
five boroughs with a population of from 10,000 to 20,000
inhabitants, and which now return sixty-nine Members,
reduced to one each, or in other words put into sche-
dule 8., leaving thus a surplus of twenty-four from
boroughs in schedule B, and 133 from schedule A,
total 157.
In the Irish boroughs, there are twenty, including the
University, which return twenty-one members ; all of
which have a population of less than 10,000 inhabi-
tants. The whole of these would be disfranchised, or
put into schedule A, and the twenty-one members
added to the former surplus, making 178.
In Scotland my rule would not operate to diminish
the number of the representatives at all.
I include the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and
Dublin in this disfranchisement, because as Colleges are
for the education of Episcopalian young men, they can
in justice have no more right to send representatives,
than Colleges of Catholics or Dissenters. And beyond
this, when their educatio❑ is completed—as they must
all have a " local habitation and a name"—they might
vote in the counties to which they respectively belonged,
and can have no right to exercise two votes, when other
people, fully their equals in all respects, have only one.

We will now trace the operation of our rule as