the Prime Minister poking fun at the minority men. Imagine Mr. Gladstone puzzled by figures; I mean real figures, not figures of speech; and try to realise his seriously hesitating at a pons asinorum! Unfortunately for the cause of proportional representation, the humorous epithets of its adversaries have not been taken by the general public in the spirit in which they were applied. The great bulk of the members of the House too are under a tremendous deception for the same reason; witness the burst of laughter which interrupted Mr. Courtney when he declared that the proportional system was very simple. Members thought he was joking, when he spoke. the language of sober truth, and they thought the Prime Minister was quite serious when he said that he didn't understand Mr. Courtney's scheme! A great majority positively refuse to look at it, because they have been told by high authorities, speaking under a disguise of gravity, that they could not understand it if they did.

Now, I hold that it is almost impossible for any educated person to read Mr. Courtney's recent speech in the House, or Mr. Albert Grey's article in this Review, and to assert that proportional representation is either impracticable or unintelligible. It may be a pons asinorum, according to the Prime Minister, but it is no more a pons asinorum than vote by ballot was in 1874, when it was first introduced into Parliamentary elections. I remember very well the difficulty which we had then to make the voter understand the secrecy of the ballot, and how to mark his voting paper, without rendering it null and void in the operation. My recollection of the pons asinorum at school is that of a passage on a scientific frontier, which having been once crossed the way was smooth and clear ever afterwards. The supporters of proportional representation need not despair of winning over the Prime Minister, if the hardest thing he has to say of their scheme is that it is like the fifth proposition of the first book. As Mr. Grey well says in his article, 'whatever complications there may be in this system, they are not felt by the voter, they do not. appear until the work of counting the votes is begun in the returning officer's room. All that the voter has to do is to write the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. against the names of the candidates in the order of his preference.'

It is not necessary that he should understand the duties of the returning officer. As a matter of fact, he knows nothing, as a rule, of the duties performed by that official at present, and they don't concern him in the least. Proportional representation, then, must be dealt with on its merits, and it won't do to say that it is a sort of Chinese puzzle, or that its authors are the inventors of some unhallowed mystic science whom all good Christians ought to avoid! The only experience we have of proportional voting, in this country, is that of the cumulative system in operation at School

2 December 1884.

Board elections. This gives a compact minority the power of securing on the Board at least one representative; and so far it works well, but its imperfections in other respects would prevent its introduction into Parliamentary elections. Though it secures to the minority their share of representation, it does not always render equal justice to the majority. Voters among the majority find it difficult to distribute their voting power according to their particular preferences for candidates all of whom they wish to support, but in varying degrees. Then the cumulative vote is not available when only a single vacancy has to be filled up, at a by-election; and it involves large undivided constituencies, and the scrutin de liste. This is not the system which Mr. Courtney and his friends wish to see adopted for Parliamentary elections. The only part of it which he would transfer is the general list, together with the undivided constituency, and in order to secure true and complete representation he would use what is called the single transferable vote, and give the voter the power to indicate by figures the candidates of his choice, and the degree of support he desired to give to each. There can be no doubt, in my judgment, that such a system is workable, but whether its results would be satisfactory can only be determined by actual experiment, and where most people will be disposed to differ from its advocates is in their demand that the experiment should be tried over the whole of our national electoral system. Why not begin on a smaller scale, in some School Board or other local election? and then, if the system works well there, it will not be so difficult to secure its adoption on a wider area. It is not likely that the House of Commons will consent to try a novel experiment on itself until the success of the experiment has been proved elsewhere to its complete satisfaction.

It may be admitted that neither of the modes of election now in general use, neither the scrutin de liste nor the single-member system, secures an adequate representation of the electors, but it does not necessarily follow that this desirable result would be secured by the proportional system. The resources of the wire-puller and the vote-manipulator are not so easily exhausted. If anything is to be done for the representation of the minority, it must not be at the expense of the majority; but a great many things have to be shown before an attempt in that direction can be made with any hope of success. It has to be shown that any given system will so operate, that while the minority shall be represented, it shall not be overrepresented, a result which would obviously be unjust to the majority. It has to be shown that the system would not introduce into the representation greater evils than that which it is intended to remedy; that, for example, it would not lead to the formation of cliques united by no common principle, but solely for the purpose of imposing their will on the majority, and so harassing it as to

compel it to adopt their views, or for the purpose of entering into some base bargain as the price of their support or abstention on the polling-day. We must take care that proportional representation does not open the door to the very subtlest form of corruption that could be introduced into an electoral system.

Then there are those who emphatically reject the whole scheme on principle; who look upon it as a means of providing a forcing house for opinions which are deservedly obnoxious; and who are satisfied that the minority, whose opinions are sound and true, will one day become a majority, and thus in due time prevail.

That portion of the instructions given to the Boundary Commissioners which directs them to have regard in dealing with the boroughs to the pursuits of the population has not met with approval everywhere, but I think many of the objections raised against it will disappear on more careful consideration. The words of the instruction are these:-'In dealing with the boroughs required to be divided, the boundaries must be adjusted so that the population may be proximately equalised, and in the arrangement of the divisions special regard should be had to the pursuits of the population.' We are indebted, it is said, to the leaders of the Opposition for this provision, and we are told that it is one which they regard as of vital importance. Why they should set any high value upon it, from a party point of view, it is not easy to see at first sight, but a closer examination reveals their advantage. It happens that in many of the boroughs to be divided, the Conservatives are excluded from a share in the representation, which a division on these lines will hereafter enable them to obtain, without giving any corresponding advantage to their opponents. This will at once appear if it be borne in mind that in these boroughs the Liberals are now, as a rule, the dominant party. Why is it that the Commissioners, in dealing with counties, have not been instructed to have special regard to the pursuits of the population? The answer may be that such an instruction would be impracticable in reference to the boundaries of electoral divisions in counties. If that is so, the fact leaves the Liberals without compensation in the counties for what they lose in the boroughs by division according to pursuits, and without the means of getting it. The working class section of the Liberal party gains as against the other section which has heretofore monopolised almost the whole representation of the party, and a large increase must take place in the number of working men's representatives in Parliament.

This is, after all, a great compensation for the Conservative gains; and the workmen's members will infuse new life and vigour into the Liberal ranks in a degree which will more than make up for numerical losses. The workman who has long sought direct representation can no longer be put off with the assurance that he is represented conjointly with other classes. He feels that the best representative

of working men is a working man, and the feeling is neither unnatural nor unreasonable.

It is objected that this division according to pursuits separates the population into classes; but it is, in fact, only a straightforward recognition of the separation that actually exists. How otherwise are we to get at the opinions of different classes except by relieving them of every impediment to the free election of their own spokesmen? Different pursuits do not necessarily imply different interests, but they do imply different habits of thought, different ways of looking at the same subject, different knowledge and experience, and different qualifications for pronouncing a judgment upon the merits of particular questions.

Our object is to get at the opinions of the whole people as far as possible, be they what they may. The nature of their opinions is a matter for after-consideration. I care not, as a believer in representative institutions, what form of political folly is represented in Parliament, if it exists outside in sufficient strength to entitle it to the measure of representation it enjoys. And if there be one set of opinions which it is more desirable in the public interest to have represented than any other, it is that which lies at the base of society, and in our ignorance of which we so often fail to obtain any true insight into the social life of the people. This division according to pursuits, then, whether designed for party purposes or not, is likely to have important consequences, and may send into the next Parliament many an eloquent advocate of strange doctrines, and many a powerful exponent of hitherto inarticulate wrongs.

After paying due regard to all the criticisms passed on the Redistribution Bill, it must be said that it is a measure deserving of the hearty support of all parties. Perfect justice in the distribution of political power is not attainable by any one measure, and this Bill perpetuates some anomalies. Under its provisions it will still be possible for a borough with a population over 15,000 to have one member, while boroughs with a population of 165,000 will have only two, so that 15,000 people in one part of the country will have as much power as 80,000 in another. It must be acknowledged, however, that this anomaly is very limited in the extent of its operation. Among the amendments which have been placed upon the paper, or of which notice has been given through the press, there are many of first-rate importance, but not one calculated to endanger the Bill or seriously to delay its passing. Mr. Bryce and Mr. Picton propose the disfranchisement of the Universities. Dr. Lyons, on the other hand, would give two members to the new Royal University of Ireland. Mr. Baxter and Mr. Arnold will make a vigorous attack on the proposal to increase the numbers of the House, which the Bill in its present shape renders necessary, and Sir John Lubbock has put down an amendment providing for proportional representation. These

speak for themselves. But Mr. Agnew has put down an amendment which demands special notice. He proposes that at every general election, all elections in the United Kingdom shall be held on one and the same day. This is a blow at faggot-voting. The Bill as it stands prevents the manufacture of faggot-votes in the future, but does not touch existing ones. If all the elections were held on one day the faggot-voter would not be able to record so many votes. It bears also on the question of the use of carriages which the rich candidate's rich friends are so ready to place at the service of voters gratuitously, but which would not be equally available if this amendment were in force. Perhaps the best effect of it would be to prevent opinion in one part of the country from being influenced suddenly by the declared opinion of another part where the election had taken place and the result of the polling was made known.

It is confidently anticipated by Liberals that their majority in the new Parliament will be as large as it is in the existing one, and if their anticipations be fulfilled the new House of Commons will be expected to undertake, immediately on its formation, legislative schemes of a very sweeping character. In addition to the Land Question, the question of County Government, including Local Option and Local Taxation, Disestablishment in England, as well as in Scotland and Wales, the devolution of Parliamentary Business, and the reform of Procedure in both Houses of Parliament, the question of Home Rule not only for Ireland, but for England and Scotland also, together with the constitution of a Second Chamber, will have to be dealt with by the new representatives of household suffrage. In what order these shall be taken will, no doubt, depend a great deal on the strength of parties, and the amount of pressure which can be brought to bear on the Government by particular sections of the House. If the Land Question is the most urgent, the question of self-government for the different divisions of the United Kingdom is undoubtedly the most important. Anything more unscientific than our existing legislative arrangements it is impossible to conceive. To have one and the same assembly occupied, it may be on the same day, with the consideration of foreign or colonial affairs of the first magnitude, and a protracted discussion on the merits of a turnpike bill, is surely the very climax of legislative folly. And this is what we may have any day under our present methods of transacting business in the House of Commons. I trust it is not too much to hope that one of the earliest results of the New Reform will be such a thorough change in our legislative system as shall extend the blessings of self-government to every part of the United Kingdom, and free the Imperial Parliament, for ever, from the worry and embarrassment of local business, thereby enabling it to discharge, without too great a sacrifice of the time and strength of its members, its great Imperial responsibilities.

J. O'CONNOR POWER.