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But the possession of theoretically equal political rights does certainly give in England , or rather to be strictly accurate in the United Kingdom , to every British subject an equality which some British subjects do not possess in some of the Dominions . This is the most serious and the most inevitable of the weaknesses attaching to a form of government under which loyalty to a citizen 's native state may conflict with his loyalty to the whole federated nation . " The present generation must of necessity look on the constitution in a spirit different from the sentiment either of 1791 or of 1818 . Whether the warning which his words certainly contain was unnecessary , or whether his implied prophecy of evU has not already been partially fulfilled or may not at some not distant date obtain more complete fulfilment , are inquiries which must be answered by the candour and the thoughtfulness of my readers . There is no law which forbids any British subject , wherever he be born , or to whatever race he belongs , to become a member of the English Cabinet or a Prime Minister . First Argument Every citizen , or , as the point is generally put , every person who pays taxes under the law of the United Kingdom , is entitled as a matter of right to a vote for a member of Parliament . The English law of the subject is found on examination to be the same as the Roman in extent , reason , and expression . The first is the reign of Law : wherever the King 's writ runs , it is the symbol and messenger not of an arbitrary authority , but of rights shared by every citizen , and capable of being asserted and made effective by the tribunals of the land . In the eyes , at any rate , of thinkers who share the moral convictions prevalent in most civilised states , it must seem a gain that the Imperial Parliament should have been able in 1834 to prohibit the existence of slavery in any country subject to the British Crown , and should be able to-day to forbid throughout the whole Empire the revival of the Slave Trade , or of judicial torture . The language commonly used , however , throws doubt and darkness over this and every other question connected with the subject .