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liquor-laws.” (EP –)
Sidgwick is of course well aware of how the demand for voter confidence
might undercut the point of democracy, since a legislature representing
only certain class interests could be even harsher toward those excluded
than a despot with fewer prejudices. But for all that, he is quite liberal in
excluding people from the franchise:
On the whole it would seem that the permanent exclusion of any class of sane
self-supporting adults, on account of poverty alone, from the share of the control
over legislation which the representative system aims at giving to the citizens
at large, is not easily defensible in face of a strong and steady demand for their
admission. It is less difficult to maintain such an exclusion in the case of avoidable ignorance of an extreme kind: i.e. to refuse the suffrage to persons who have not
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attained a certain educational standard, provided that facilities for education are
within the reach of all classes. Various other exclusions are permanently defensible
on different grounds. Thus it seems reasonable to withhold the suffrage – partly
as a deterrent, partly as a security against its perversion – from persons who have
committed grave offences of any kind; also from all who have been convicted of
buying or selling votes, or intimidating electors. In some cases, disgraceful con-
duct not amounting to crime seems a sufficient ground for exclusion – e.g. the
keeping of a brothel, where this is tolerated. It also seems reasonable to disfran-
chise temporarily persons who without crime have so far failed to maintain their
economic independence as to receive support as paupers from public funds; on
the ground that their use of the vote as a protection of their political interests is specially unlikely to be advantageous to the public. Other temporary exclusions
appear to be desirable for reasons that involve no sort of discredit. Thus, as we
have seen, the ordinary objections to electoral restrictions do not apply in the case of exclusion on the ground of youth and inexperience; and it seems reasonable to
impose, as a condition of the suffrage, an inferior limit of age somewhat higher
than that of ordinary legal maturity; so that a man may not have a share in the
control of public affairs until after some years of the experience gained by the
independent management of his own affairs. Again, when we examine the possi-
bilities of bringing the motive of private interest into illicit operation in political elections, we are led to distinguish a special class of persons in whose case this
operation cannot effectually be excluded, except by a partial withdrawal of the
right of voting. I mean persons employed by candidates or their friends for the
work of an election. A similar danger exists in some measure in the case of perma-
nent employment, private or governmental: but not such as to justify a sweeping
disfranchisement of employees, provided that the independence of the latter is
tolerably secured by the protection of the ballot or otherwise. There is, however,
a special ground for excluding from the exercise of the suffrage such employees
of government as are charged with the function of physical coercion – policemen
or soldiers on service – on the score of the peculiar importance of keeping them
impartial in political conflicts. (EP –)
As one might expect, there is a fairly nuanced discussion of the en-
franchisement of women, though Sidgwick admits that, sad to say, “if we
seek for a definition of democracy applicable to modern facts, it seems
necessary to limit the ‘governed’ whose consent is required to ‘sane law-
abiding adult men’ ” (EP ). But he can see “no adequate reason for
refusing the franchise to any sane self-supporting adult otherwise eligible,
on the score of her sex alone.” Indeed, “there is a danger of material in-
justice resulting from such refusal, so long as the State leaves unmarried
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women and widows to struggle for a livelihood in the general industrial
competition, without any special privileges or protection.” (EP )
Sidgwick makes short, rather sarcastic work of the claims that the fran-
chise belongs to those who can defend the country when attacked, or who
represent a preponderance of physical force: the “manifest superiority
of trained soldiers in physical conflict” would, on this argument, require
that they receive “electoral power out of proportion to their numbers”
(EP ).
The matter of race as a possible ground for exclusion from the franchise
is one that Sidgwick treats in a much more gingerly fashion. He appears
to have maintained a certain agnosticism on the subject that allowed him
to remain at least somewhat loyal to Mill’s emphasis on racial equality.
Thus,
Exclusion on the ground of race alone may be expedient if the general intellectual
or moral inferiority of the race excluded is sufficiently clear. But a political society in which such exclusion is an important question, will be necessarily different
from that which has been generally contemplated in the discussions of the present
treatise, and will be likely to require different laws in other matters besides the
franchise. (EP )
The “present treatise” had of course considered such countries as the
United States and Australia. Furthermore, in a note to his discussion on
colonization, he remarks,
Of course if it should become clear that the social amalgamation of two races
would be debasing to the superior race, or otherwise demonstrably opposed to
the interests of humanity at large, every effort ought to be made to carry into
effect some drastic and permanent measures of separation. But I do not think
that any proof has yet been brought adequate to support such a conclusion.
(EP )
This is Sidgwick’s characteristic way of commenting on the issue.
In correspondence, he repeatedly states that there is no evidence wor-
thy of the designation “scientific” for inherent racial differences when
it comes to such things as intelligence and moral capacity. But his
views on race and prejudice are perhaps not so innocent, and will be
treated more fully later, when discussing the issues of colonialism and
imperialism.
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In addressing Sidgwick’s conception of democracy, with its severe lim-
itations on the franchise, it is vital to bear in mind that his main worry was
how to ensure justice in legislation: “I did not mean to imply that good
legislation is a kind of bargain struck between conflicting class-interests; it
is the interest of the whole, which includes justice to all the parts, at which
the statesman should aim: and justice, as Mill says, consists in giving a
man not the half of what he asks, but the whole of what he ought to have”
(EP –). Restriction of the suffrage admittedly runs the risk that the
interests of the unenfranchised class will be unfairly sacrificed, but on
the other side, “a widely extended suffrage involves a danger . . . that the ultimate interests of the whole community may be sacrificed to the real or
apparent class-interests of the numerical majority of the electors, either
through ignorance or through selfishness and limitation of sympathy”
(EP ). Sidgwick thinks that the latter danger “may be more or less
effectively met by giving the wealthier and more educated classes a repre-
sentation in the legislature out of proportion to their numbers,” which is
in effect the aim of most bicameral legislative structures.
But the general means and principles by which this might be done are
very problematic. Given Mill’s views on the matter, Sidgwick is naturally
appreciative of the importance of weighted or plural voting schemes, ac-
cording to which either certain classes or certain individuals are given
proportionately more voting power. He allows that there are some argu-
ments for so weighting the votes of the rich, since “man for man, the rich
have more important interests to defend than the poor.” But he is more
impressed by the idea that “superior political knowledge and insight”
come
to be possessed on the average by the classes with larger incomes; partly from their
more advanced education, and the habits of reading and thought thus acquired,
partly from the exercise of intellect involved in the management of property, in
the direction of industrial and commercial undertakings, and in the work of the
‘learned’ professions and other higher forms of skilled labour.
Still, superiority of this form “does not universally, or at all uniformly,
accompany wealth,” and any system of weighted voting would have to
allow the poor to demonstrate that they had the requisite intellectual
superiority. (EP –)
In fact, on balance, Sidgwick finds these schemes to be faced by
very grave difficulties. Any plan for implementing the recognition of the
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superiority of wealth or intelligence would have to be “to a great extent
arbitrary: we have no means of determining, with any pretence to exact-
ness, how much additional electoral power is due to wealth on account
of the implication of social with private interests, or how much properly
corresponds to any available evidence of probable superiority in politi-
cal judgment.” Any scheme would have to be left open to change, and
would more or less perpetually encourage political agitation in some di-
rection. Furthermore, as for any balance of interests, “it is impossible
to divide society into classes which remain identical and equally distinct
for all legislative purposes: as we pass from one proposed law to another,
we find that the important lines of division are continually changing.”
Thus, sometimes the conflicts are between agricultural interests and man-
ufacturing ones, sometimes between manual laborers and artisans, and so
on, so that any weighting of the vote in favor of wealth might aggra-
vate “the natural inequalities of a modern industrial society by adding
artificial political inequalities to correspond” and “cause a real injus-
tice corresponding to the appearance.” (EP –) Finally, weighting
in terms of superior political knowledge and judgment is also bound to be
arbitrary:
For, in the present state of the political art, such superiority is largely derived
from personal experience, and reflection on such experience: and in any case
requires a steady direction of thought to political questions, of which, in most
cases, a satisfactory guarantee is not afforded either by prolonged education, or
certificates of scholastic attainments, or the exercise of professinal functions. A
thoughtful artisan who has only had an elementary education may easily have
more political insight – and even knowledge – than e.g. a schoolmaster, physi-
cian, or engineer whose intellectual energies are absorbed in his special pursuit.
(EP )
As Sidgwick goes on pointedly to observe, even without formal ad-
vantages in voting power, the rich “are likely always to count practically
for more than one vote each.” Bribery cannot be altogether prevented,
nor intimidation, and more importantly, “gratitude for services, private
or public – and hopes of similar services in the future – will always be
motives operating on the side of wealthy candidates, or candidates with
wealthy backers.” Something of the same applies to superior intelligence,
since when directed to “political exposition and persuasion” it will also
wield great indirect electoral power.
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Such considerations as these “somewhat reduce the danger that a widely
extended suffrage prima facie involves, of legislation in which the interests of the rich minority are sacrificed to those of the poor majority in a manner
disadvantageous to the community as a whole.” They do not, however,
demonstrate that such dangers are “immaterial,” and Sidgwick allows
that they are “likely to become more formidable in the future history of
Western Europe and America.” After all, “we have not yet seen the working
of a thoroughly organised democracy, with a strong urban element, in a
crowded country with very marked contrasts of wealth and poverty.” Still,
Sidgwick thinks it preferable, if at all possible, “to meet this danger by
developing the natural and legitimate influence of wealth, when used as
a means of performing social services, and of intelligence, when directed
to political instruction and persuasion.” Should these prove inadequate,
then artificial weighting measures might be called for, and the plural vote
would be more workable than unequally represented classes. In any event,
if the weighted-vote scheme is to work, “the standard either of wealth or
intellectual attainment should be low, so that the increased electoral power
allotted to them may be widely shared, and the invidiousness of heaping
votes on a privileged few may be avoided.” (EP –)
In the course of these discussions, Sidgwick makes some singularly<
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illuminating remarks, delicately tucked away in notes. Thus, he wants
to make it clear, however discreetly, that the unequal share of wealth of
any given rich individual does not call for special protection on utilitar-
ian grounds, given that inequality is prima facie not in accord with the
general happiness. But with an eye toward Mill, he goes on to explain
that we “cannot indeed say that every man’s happiness is of equal im-
portance as an element of the general happiness; because development
of intellect and refinement of taste generally imply a capacity for supe-
rior pleasures. But it is just because this higher kind of happiness is at
present enjoyed by few that a distribution of wealth much less unequal
than the present would be undoubtedly desirable if it could be effected
without any material diminution in the total amount to be distributed.”
(EP ) Moreover, he has high hopes for the future progress of eco-
nomic and political science. He doubts that “the value of political insight
is underrated by thoughtful persons generally in any class.” If the less ed-
ucated “have now a difficulty in determining where it lies, and are liable to
take a charlatan for a statesman, it is largely because educated opinion is so
divided; – because the ‘royal art’ of government, as judged by the criterion
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of ‘consensus of experts,’ is still in so rudimentary a condition.” In the
future, as knowledge progresses, “disinterested students of politics should
come to greater agreement,” and consequently it is “reasonable to hope
that the less educated will in preponderant numbers follow their lead.”
(EP –) Clearly, the advancement of the educating society is a matter
of some urgency.
Interestingly, when Sidgwick comes to the matter of legislative districts
and the issue of proportional representation, he strongly dissents from
the plan of Thomas Hare, which had been so enthusiastically endorsed
by Mill in Considerations. The idea of obtaining a truer representation
by “the formation of constituencies by free combination, independent of