versity is a distinct community from the city or borough in
which it is locally placed, something in the same way in which it is
held that a city or borough is a distinct community from the county in
which it locally stands. The University of Oxford has interests,
feelings, a general corporate being, distinct from the city of Oxford,
just as the city of Oxford has interests, feelings, a general corporate
being, distinct from the county of Oxford. So, if one were maliciously
given, one might go on to argue that the choice of a representative made
by the borough of Woodstock seems to show that the inhabitants of that
borough have something in them which makes them distinct from
University, county, city, or any other known division of mankind.
Regarding then these differences, the wisdom of our forefathers has
ruled, not that the county of Oxford, the city, the University, and the
boroughs of Woodstock and Banbury, should join to elect nine members
after the principle of _scrutin de liste_, but that the nine members
should be distributed among them according to their local divisions,
after the principle of _scrutin d'arrondissement_. On any ground but
this local one, a ground which applies to some Universities and not to
others, and which seems to have less weight than formerly in those
Universities to which it does apply, the University franchise is
certainly an anomaly. It must submit to be set down as a fancy
franchise. But it is a fancy franchise which has a great weight of
precedent in its favour. Besides the original institution of the British
Solomon, there is the fact that University representation has been
extended at each moment of constitutional change for a century past. It
was extended by the Union with Ireland, by the great Reform Bill, and by
the legislation of fifteen years back. Each of these changes has added
to the number of University members. And each has added to them in a way
which more and more forsakes the local ground, and gives to the
University franchise more and more the character of a fancy franchise.
Dublin has less of local character than Oxford and Cambridge; London has
no local character at all. Such a grouping as that of Glasgow and
Aberdeen takes away all local character from Scottish University
representation. In short, whatever James the First intended, later
legislators, down to our own day, have adopted and confirmed the
principle of the fancy franchise as applied to the Universities.