nestness, they will look after him to see that he does expound it.
The members will be like the minister of a dissenting congregation.
That congregation is collected by a unity of sentiment in doctrine A,
and the preacher is to preach doctrine A; if he does not, he is
dismissed. At present the member is free because the constituency is
not in earnest; no constituency has an acute, accurate doctrinal creed
in politics. The law made the constituencies by geographical divisions;
and they are not bound together by close unity of belief. They have
vague preferences for particular doctrines; and that is all. But a
voluntary constituency would be a church with tenets; it would make its
representative the messenger of its mandates, and the delegate of its
determinations. As in the case of a dissenting congregation, one great
minister sometimes rules it, while ninety-nine ministers in the hundred
are ruled by it, so here one noted man would rule his electors, but the
electors would rule all the others.

Thus, the members for a good voluntary constituency would be hopelessly
enslaved, because of its goodness; but the members for a bad voluntary
constituency would be yet more enslaved because of its badness. The
makers of these constituencies would keep the despotism in their own
hands. In America there is a division of politicians into wire-pullers
and blowers; under the voluntary system the member of Parliament would
be the only momentary mouth-piece--the impotent blower; while the
constituency-maker would be the latent wire-puller--the constant
autocrat. He would write to gentlemen in Parliament, and say, "You were
elected upon 'the Liberal ticket'; and if you deviate from that ticket
you cannot be chosen again". And there would be no appeal for a
common-minded man. He is no more likely to make a constituency for
himself than a mole is likely to make a planet.

It may indeed be said that against a septennial Parliament such
machinations would be powerless; that a member elected for seven years
might defy the remonstrances of an earnest constituency, or the
imprecations of the latent manipulators. But after the voluntary
composition of constituencies, there would soon be but short-lived
Parliaments. Earnest constituencies would exact frequent elections;
they would not like to part with their virtue for a long period; it
would anger them to see it used contrary to their wishes, amid
circumstances which at the election no one tho