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 thought of.  A seven years’ Parliament is often chosen in one political period, lasts through a second, and is dissolved in a third.  A constituency collected by law and on compulsion endures this change because it has no collective earnestness; it does not mind seeing the power it gave used in a manner that it could not have foreseen.  But a self-formed constituency of eager opinions, a missionary constituency, so to speak, would object; it would think it its bounden duty to object; and the crafty manipulators, though they said nothing, in silence would object still more.  The two together would enjoin annual elections, and would rule their members unflinchingly.

The voluntary plan, therefore, when tried in this easy form is inconsistent with the extrinsic independence as well as with the inherent moderation of a Parliament—­two of the conditions which, as we have seen, are essential to the bare possibility of Parliamentary government.  The same objections, as is inevitable, adhere to that principle under its more complicated forms.  It is in vain to pile detail on detail when the objection is one of first principle.  If the above reasoning be sound, compulsory constituencies are necessary, voluntary constituencies destructive; the optional transferability of votes is not a salutary aid, but a ruinous innovation.