Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election Part 1

Proportional Representation.

by John H. Humphreys.

INTRODUCTION

BY LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH

I believe this book will generally be welcomed as opportune.

Proportional Representation has made very rapid, almost startling advances in recent years. In one shape or another it has been adopted in many countries in Northern Europe, and there is a prospect of a most important extension of this adoption in the reform of the parliamentary inst.i.tutions of France. Among ourselves, every political writer and speaker have got some inkling of the central principle of proportional representation, and not a few feel, sometimes with reluctance, that it has come to stay, that it will indeed be worked into our own system when the inevitable moment arrives for taking up again the reform of the House of Commons. They know and confess so much among themselves, but they want to be familiarized with the best machinery for working proportional representation, and they would not be sorry to have the arguments for and against its principles once more clearly examined so that they may be properly equipped for the reception of the coming change. This little book of Mr. Humphreys is just what they desire. The author has no doubt about his conclusions, but he goes fairly and with quite sufficient fulness through the main branches of the controversy over proportional representation, and he explains the working of an election under the system we must now regard as the one most likely to be adopted among us. His qualifications for his work are indeed rare, and his authority in a corresponding measure high. A convinced adherent of proportional representation, he stimulated the revival of the Society established to promote it. He was the chief organizer of the enlarged ill.u.s.trative elections we have had at home. He has attended elections in Belgium and again in Sweden, and when the time came for electing Senators in the colonies of South Africa, and Munic.i.p.al Councils in Johannesburg and Pretoria, the local governments solicited his a.s.sistance in conducting them, and put on record their obligations for his help. The reader can have no better guide in argument, no more experienced hand in the explanation of machinery, and if I add that Mr.

Humphreys has done his work with complete mastery of his subject and with conspicuous clearness of exposition, I need say no more in recommendation of his book.

It may be objected that the Royal Commission which issued its Report last spring, did not recommend the incorporation of proportional representation into our electoral system. This is most true. One member indeed (Lord Lochee) did not shrink from this conclusion, but his colleagues were unable to report that a case had been made out for the adoption "here and now" of proportional representation. Their hesitancy and the reasons they advanced as justifying it must lead many to a conclusion opposite to their own. They themselves are indeed emphatic in pressing the limitation "here and now" as qualifying their verdict. They wish it to be most distinctly understood that they have no irresistible objection to proportional representation. They indeed openly confess that conditions may arise among ourselves at some future time which would appear to be not necessarily distant, when the balance of expediency may turn in favour of its adoption. They suggest "that some need may become felt which can only be satisfied by proportional representation in some form or another," and I do not think I misrepresent their att.i.tude in believing that a very small change of circ.u.mstances might suffice to precipitate a reversal of their present conclusion. All who are familiar with the conduct of political controversies must recognize the situation thus revealed. Again and again have proposals of reform been made which the wise could not recommend for acceptance "here and now." They are seen to be good for other folk; they fit into the circ.u.mstances of other societies; they may have worked well in climates different from our own; nay, among ourselves they might be tried in some auxiliary fas.h.i.+on separated from the great use for which they have been recommended, but we will wait for the proper moment of their undisguised general acceptance. It is in this way that political ideas have been propagated, and it would be a mistake if we were hastily to condemn what are sure and trusty lines of progress. When the Royal Commissioners, after all their hesitations about the intrusion of proportional representation even in the thinnest of wedges into the House of Commons, go on to say that "there would be much to be said in its favour as a method for the const.i.tution of an elected Second Chamber," and again, though admitting that this was beyond their reference, express a pretty transparent wish that it might be tried in munic.i.p.al elections, the friends of the principle may well be content with the line which the tide of opinion has reached. The concluding words of this branch of the Report are scarcely necessary for their satisfaction: "We need only add, that should it be decided at any time to introduce proportional representation here for political elections the change would be facilitated if experience had been gained in munic.i.p.al elections alike by electors and officials."

A few words may be permitted in reference to the line of defence advanced by the Commissioners against the inroad of proportional representation. Mr. Humphreys has dealt with this with sufficient fullness in Chapters X and XI which deal with objections to proportional representation; and I refer the reader to what he has written on the general subject. My own comment on the position of the Commissioners must be short. Briefly stated, their position is that proportional representation "cannot be recommended in a political election where the question which party is to govern the country plays a predominant part,"

and, as elsewhere they put it, "a general election is in fact considered by a large portion of the electorate of this country as practically a referendum on the question which of two governments shall be returned to power." The first remark to be made upon this wonderful barrier is that a general election avowedly cannot be trusted as a true referendum. It produces a balance of members in favour of one party, though even this may fail to be realized at no distant future, but the balance of members may be and has been under our present system in contradiction to the balance of the electors; or in other words, a referendum would answer the vital question which party is to govern, in the opposite sense to the answer given by a general election. This is so frankly admitted in the Report that it is difficult to understand how the Commissioners can recommend adherence to a process which they have proved to be a delusion. Even on the bare question of ascertaining what government the nation desires to see installed at Westminster, the present method is found wanting, whilst the reformed plan, by giving us a reproduction in miniature of the divisions of national opinion, would in the balance of judgment of the microcosm give us the balance of judgment in the nation.

If a referendum is really wanted, a general election with single-member const.i.tuencies does not give us a secure result, and an election under proportional representation would ensure it. A different question obviously disturbs many minds, to wit, the stability of a government resting on the support of a truly representative a.s.sembly. Here again it may be asked whether our present machinery really satisfies conditions of stable equilibrium. We know they are wanting, and with the development of groups among us, they will be found still more wanting.

The groups which emerge under existing processes are uncertain in shape, in size, and in their combinations, and governments resting upon them are infirm even when they appear to be strong. It is only when the groups in the legislature represent in faithful proportion bodies of convinced adherents returning them as their representatives that such groups become strong enough to restore parliamentary efficiency and to combine in the maintenance of a stable administration. It may require a little exercise of political imagination to realize how the transformed House of Commons would work, and to many the demonstration will only come through a new experience to which they will be driven through the failure of the existing apparatus. Meanwhile it may be suggested to doubters whether their anxiety respecting the possible working of a reformed House of Commons is not at bottom a distrust of freedom. They are afraid of a House of chartered liberties, whereas they would find the best security for stable and ordered progress in the self-adjustment of an a.s.sembly which would be a nation in miniature.

COURTNEY OF PENWITH

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Current const.i.tutional and electoral problems cannot be solved in the absence of a satisfactory method of choosing representatives. An attempt has therefore been made in the present volume to contrast the practical working of various methods of election; of majority systems as exemplified in single-member const.i.tuencies and in multi-member const.i.tuencies with the block vote; of majority systems modified by the use of the second ballot or of the transferable vote; of the earlier forms of minority representation; and, lastly, of modern systems of proportional representation.

Care has been taken to ensure accuracy in the descriptions of the electoral systems in use. The memorandum on the use of the single vote in j.a.pan has been kindly supplied by Mr. Kametaro Hayas.h.i.+da, the Chief Secretary of the j.a.panese House of Representatives; the description of the Belgian system of proportional representation has been revised by Count Goblet d'Alviella, Secretary of the Belgian Senate; the account of the Swedish system by Major E. von Heidenstam, of Ronneby; that of the Finland system by Dr. J.N. Reuter, of Helsingfors; whilst the chapter on the second ballot and the transferable vote in single-member const.i.tuencies is based upon information furnished by correspondents in the countries in which these systems are in force. The statistical a.n.a.lyses of elections in the United Kingdom were prepared by Mr. J.

Booke Corbett, of the Manchester Statistical Society, whose figures were accepted by the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems as representing "the truth as correctly as circ.u.mstances will permit."

The author is greatly indebted to his colleagues of the Proportional Representation Society, Mr. J. Fischer Williams and Mr. Alfred J. Gray, for the cordial a.s.sistance rendered by them in the preparation of this book. Acknowledgments are also due to the editors of the _Times_, the _Contemporary Review_, and the _Albany Review_, for permission to make use of contributions to these journals.

J.H.H.

CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE NATIONAL WILL

"The virtue, the spirit, the essence of the House of Commons, consists in its being the express image of the nation."--BURKE.

"It is necessary," said Burke, "to resort to the theory of government whenever you propose any alteration in the frame of it, whether that alteration means the revival of some former antiquated and forsaken const.i.tution or state, or the introduction of some new improvement in the commonwealth." The following chapters are a plea for an improvement in our electoral methods, and although the suggested improvement and the arguments with which it is supported are not new, yet it is desirable, in the spirit of Burke's declaration, to preface the plea with some reference to the main feature of our const.i.tution.

_The spread of representative government_.

The outstanding characteristic of the British Const.i.tution, its fundamental principle, is now, if not fully so in Burke's time, the government of the nation by its chosen representatives. Indeed, so much is this the case that, in spite of the continued presence of elements which are far from representative in character, originating in that distant past when commoners had little, if any, political influence, the British Const.i.tution and Representative Government are almost synonymous terms, and the "mother of parliaments" has given birth to so long a succession of const.i.tutions of which the cardinal principle is representative government--the a.s.sociation of the governed with the government--that we cannot now think of our House of Commons save as the most complete expression of this principle. Nor, despite the criticisms, many of them fully deserved, which have been directed against the working of parliamentary inst.i.tutions, has the House of Commons ceased to be taken in other lands as a model to be reproduced in general outline. New parliaments continue to arise and in the most unexpected quarters. China is insistently demanding the immediate realisation of full representative government. j.a.pan has not only a.s.similated western learning, but has adopted western representative inst.i.tutions, and in copying our electoral machinery has added improvements of her own.

Russia has established a parliament which, although not at present elected upon a democratic basis, must inevitably act as a powerful check upon autocracy, and in the process will a.s.suredly seek that increased authority which comes from a more complete identification with the people. The Reichstag has demanded the cessation of the personal rule of the German Emperor, and will not be content until, in the nation's name, it exercises a more complete control over the nation's affairs.

Parliamentary government was recently established at Constantinople amid the plaudits of the whole civilized world, and although the new regime has not fulfilled all the hopes formed of it, yet upon its continuance depends the maintenance of the improvements already effected in Turkey.

Lord Morley signalized his tenure of office as Secretary of State for India by reforms that make a great advance in the establishment of representative inst.i.tutions. Some of these experiments may be regarded as premature, but in the case of civilized nations there would appear to be no going back; for them there is no alternative to democracy, and if representative inst.i.tutions have not yielded so far all the results that were expected of them, progress must be sought in an improvement of these inst.i.tutions rather than in a return to earlier conditions. The only criticism, therefore, of the House of Commons that is of practical value must deal with those defects which experience has disclosed, and with those improvements in its organization and composition which are essential if in the future it is to discharge efficiently and adequately its primary function of giving effect to the national will.

_The House of Commons and sovereign power._

"The essential property of representative government," says Professor Dicey, "is to produce coincidence between the wishes of the Sovereign and the wishes of the subject.... This, which is true in its measure of all real representative government applies with special truth to the English House of Commons." [1] This conception of the House of Commons as the central and predominant factor in the const.i.tution, exercising sovereign power because it represents the nation which it governs, has been notably strengthened during the last fifty years. A change having far-reaching consequences took place in 1861, when the repeal of the paper duties was effected by a clause in the annual Bill providing for the necessary reimposition of annual duties, a proceeding which deprived the Lords of the opportunity of defeating the new proposal other than by rejecting the whole of the measure of which it formed a part. This example has since been followed by both the great parties of the State.

Sir William Harcourt embodied extensive changes in the Death Duties in the Finance Bill of 1894; Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, in 1899, included proposals for altering the permanent provisions made for the reduction of the National Debt; Mr. Lloyd George, following these precedents, included in the Finance Bill of 1909 important new taxes which, prior to 1861, would have been submitted to both Houses in the form of separate Bills. The House of Commons, however, has not yet attained the position of full unqualified sovereignty, for, whilst the relations between the King and the Commons have been harmonised by making the King's Ministry dependent upon that House, the decisions of the House of Lords are not yet subject to the same control. The Lords successfully rejected the Education, Licensing, and Plural Voting Bills, all of which were pa.s.sed by the Commons by large majorities during the Parliament of 1906-1909.

Further, it refused its consent to the Finance Bill of 1909 until the measure had been submitted to the judgment of the country, and by this action compelled a dissolution of Parliament.[2]

_The demand for complete sovereignty._

These a.s.sertions of authority on the part of the House of Lords called forth from the Commons a fresh demand for complete sovereignty--a demand based on the ground that the House of Commons expresses the will of the people, and that the rejection by the hereditary House of measures desired by the nation's representatives is directly opposed to the true principles of representative government. In consequence of the rejection of the Education and Plural Voting Bills of 1906, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in June 1907, moved in the House of Commons the following resolution: "That, in order to give effect to the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills pa.s.sed by this House, should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limit of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail." The first clause of this resolution advances the claim already referred to--that the House of Commons is the representative and authoritative expression of the national will--and in support of this claim Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman quoted the declaration of Burke, that "the virtue, the spirit, the essence of the House of Commons consists in its being the express image of the nation." In the Parliament elected in January 1910, further resolutions were carried by the Commons defining more precisely the proposed limitation of the legislative power of the Lords. It was resolved[3] that the House of Lords should be disabled by law from rejecting or amending a money Bill, and that any Bill other than a money Bill which had pa.s.sed the House of Commons in three successive sessions should become law without the consent of the House of Lords.

These resolutions were embodied in the Parliament Bill, but the measure was not proceeded with owing to the death of King Edward, and a conference between the leaders of the two chief parties met for the purpose of finding a settlement of the controversy by consent. The conference failed, and the Government at once took steps to appeal to the country for a decision in support of its proposals. Meanwhile the House of Lords, which had already placed on record its opinion that the possession of a peerage should no longer confer the right to legislate, carried resolutions outlining a scheme for a new Second Chamber, and proposing that disputes between the two Houses should be decided by joint sessions, or, in matters of great gravity, by means of a Referendum. The result of the appeal to the country (Dec. 1910) was in favour of the Government. The Parliament Bill was re-introduced, and this measure, if pa.s.sed, will mark an important step in the realisation of the demand of the Commons for complete sovereignty.

_Complete sovereignty demands complete representation._

The Parliament Bill does not, however, contemplate the establishment of single-chamber Government, and it would appear that complete sovereignty is only claimed whilst the House of Lords is based upon the hereditary principle. For the preamble of the Bill declares that "it is intended to subst.i.tute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber const.i.tuted on a popular instead of hereditary basis," and that "provision will require hereafter to be made by Parliament in a measure effecting such subst.i.tution for limiting and defining the powers of the new Second Chamber." But whatever const.i.tutional changes may take place, the national will must remain the final authority in legislation, and the ultimate position of the House of Commons in the const.i.tution and in public esteem will depend upon the confidence with which it can be regarded as giving expression to that will. It cannot claim to be the sole authority for legislation without provoking searching inquiries into the methods of election by which it is brought into being. At a General Election the citizens are asked to choose representatives who shall have full power to speak in their name on all questions which may arise during the lifetime of a Parliament. But, although invariably there are several important questions before the country awaiting decision, the elector is usually restricted in his choice to two candidates, and it is obvious that this limited choice affords him a most inadequate opportunity of giving expression to his views upon the questions placed before him. There can be no guarantee that the decisions of representatives so chosen are always in agreement with the wishes of those who elected them. Even in the General Election of December 1910, when every effort was made to concentrate public attention upon one problem--the relations between the two Houses of Parliament--the elector in giving his vote had to consider the probable effect of his choice upon many other questions of first-cla.s.s importance--the const.i.tution of a new Second Chamber, Home Rule for Ireland, the maintenance of Free Trade, the establishment of an Imperial Preference, Electoral Reform, the reversal or modification of the Osborne Judgment, Payment of Members, Invalidity Insurance; in respect of all of which legislative proposals might possibly be submitted to the new Parliament. Obviously before the House of Commons can be regarded with complete confidence as the expression of the national will, the elector must be given a wider and more effective choice in the selection of a representative.

It is, however, contended by many politicians that the main object of a General Election is not the creation of a legislature which shall give expression to the views of electors on public questions. "A General Election," says the Report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems,[4] "is in fact considered by a large portion of the electorate as practically a referendum on the question which of two Governments shall be returned to power." But were this interpretation of a General Election accepted it would destroy the grounds on which it is claimed that the decisions of the Commons in respect of legislation shall prevail "within the limit of a single Parliament." Some means should be available for controlling the Government in respect of its legislative proposals, and the history of the Unionist administrations of 1895-1906, during which the House of Lords failed to exercise any such control, demonstrated the need of a check upon the action of a House of Commons elected under present conditions. Mr. John M. Robertson, whose democratic leanings are not open to the least suspicion, has commented in this sense upon the lack of confidence in the representative character of the House of Commons. "Let me remind you," said he, "that the state of things in which the Progressive party can get in on a tidal movement of political feeling with a majority of 200, causes deep misgivings in the minds of many electors.... Those who desire an effective limitation of the power of the House of Lords and its ultimate abolition, are bound to offer to the great ma.s.s of prudent electors some measure of electoral reform which will give greater stability to the results of the polls, and will make the results at a General Election more in keeping with the actual balance of opinion in the country." [5]

The preamble of the Parliament Bill itself implies that the decisions of the House of Commons may not always be in accordance with the national wishes. It foreshadows the creation of a new Second Chamber, and the only purpose which this chamber can serve is to make good the deficiencies of the First.

The fact that our electoral methods are so faulty that their results produce in the minds of many electors deep misgivings as to the representative character of the House of Commons must materially undermine the authority of that House. All who desire the final and complete triumph of representative inst.i.tutions--a triumph that depends upon their success in meeting the demands made upon them--all who are anxious that the House of Commons shall not only maintain, but increase, the prestige that has. .h.i.therto been a.s.sociated with it, must, in the face of possible const.i.tutional developments, endeavour to strengthen its position by making it in fact, as it is in theory, fully representative of the nation. For Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's quotation from Burke is double-edged, and may be expressed thus: "the virtue, the spirit, the essence of the House of Commons departs as soon as it ceases to be the express image of the nation." Such a House cannot furnish an adequate basis of support for a Government. For the Government which issues from it will not command public confidence. The debates in the House in 1905, before the resignation of Mr. Balfour, bore testimony to the fact that the strength and power of a Government which, according to the theory of our const.i.tution, depends upon the number of its supporters in the House of Commons, in reality rests upon its reputation with the country. There was quoted more than once with excellent effect this dictum of Sir William Anson: "Ministers are not only the servants of the Crown, they represent the public opinion of the United Kingdom. When they cease to impersonate public opinion they become a mere group of personages who must stand or fall by the prudence and success of their actions. They have to deal with disorders at home or hostile manifestations abroad; they would have to meet these with the knowledge that they had not the confidence or support of the country; and their opponents at home and abroad would know this too." [6]

The strength and stability of a democratic Government thus depend upon its capacity to interpret the will of the country, and the support which the House of Commons can give is of value only to the extent to which that House reflects national opinion. The Commons, if it is to maintain unimpaired its predominant position in the const.i.tution, must make good its claim to be the representative expression of the national will. The measures for which it makes itself responsible must have behind them that irresistible authority, the approval of the electorate. If then our electoral methods fail to yield a fully representative House, and if, in consequence, the House cannot satisfactorily fulfil its double function of affording an adequate basis of support to the Government which springs from it, and of legislating in accordance with the nation's wishes, the resultant dissatisfaction and instability must give rise to a demand for their improvement. The House of Commons must re-establish itself upon surer foundations.

_Strengthening the foundations of the House of Commons._

Each change in the const.i.tution of the House of Commons--and its foundations have been strengthened on more than one occasion--has been preceded by a recognition of its failure to meet in full the requirements of a representative chamber. Large changes have again and again been made in consequence of such recognition since the day when Burke alleged that its virtue lay in its being "the express image of the nation." At the close of the eighteenth century, when these words were spoken, it could be alleged with apparent truth that 306 members were virtually returned by the influence of 160 persons.[7] The consciousness that such a House could not be the express image of the nation produced the Reform Bill of 1832, and a further recognition that a still larger number of the governed must be a.s.sociated with the Government, produced the further changes of 1867 and of 1884, embodied in measures significantly called Acts for the Representation of the People. These changes, by conferring the franchise upon an ever-widening circle of citizens, have, from one point of view, rendered the House of Commons more fully representative of the nation at large. But even whilst the process of extending the franchise was still in operation, it was recognized that such extensions were not in themselves sufficient to create a House of Commons that could claim to be a true expression of the national will. The test of a true system of representation, laid down by Mill in _Representative Government_, has never been successfully challenged. It still remains the last word upon the subject, and, until the House of Commons satisfies that test with reasonable approximation, it will always be open to the charge that it is not fully representative, and that in consequence its decisions lack the necessary authority. "In a really equal democracy," runs the oft-quoted phrase, "any and every section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. A majority of the electors would always have a majority of the representatives; but a minority of electors would always have a minority of the representatives. Man for man, they would be as fully represented as the majority." [8]

Mill's philosophy finds but little favour in many quarters of political activity to-day, and the rejection of his philosophy has induced many to regard his views on representative government as of little value. Even so staunch an admirer as Lord Morley of Blackburn has underestimated the importance of Mill's declaration, for, in a recent appreciation of the philosopher[9] he declared that Mill "was less successful in dealing with parliamentary machinery than in the infinitely more important task of moulding and elevating popular character, motives, ideals, and steady respect for truth, equity and common sense--things that matter a vast deal more than machinery." Yet Lord Morley, in his attempt to make a beginning with representative inst.i.tutions in India, found that questions of electoral machinery were of the first importance; that they, indeed, const.i.tuted his chief difficulty; and he was compelled in adjusting the respective claims of Hindus and Muhammadans to have recourse to Mill's famous principle--the due representation of minorities. Mill, as subsequent chapters will show, understood what Lord Morley seems to have insufficiently recognized, that the development or repression of growth in popular character, motives and ideals, nay, the successful working of representative inst.i.tutions themselves, depends in a very considerable degree upon electoral machinery. Its importance increases with every fresh a.s.sertion of democratic principles, and the const.i.tutional issues raised during the Parliaments of 1906, 1910, and 1911 must involve a revision of our electoral methods before a complete solution is attained. The demand on the part of the House of Commons for complete sovereignty must evoke a counter demand that that House shall make itself fully representative.

_The rise of a new party._

But the relations which should subsist between the two Houses of Parliament, whether the upper House is reformed or not, is not the only question which is giving rise to a closer examination of the foundations of the House of Commons. To this external difficulty there must be added the internal, and in the future a more pressing, problem created by the rise of a new organized party within the House of Commons itself. The successive extensions of the franchise have given birth to new political forces which are not content to give expression to their views along the old channels of the two historic parties, and the growth of the Labour Party must accelerate the demand for a more satisfactory electoral method. For a system which fails in many respects to meet the requirements of two political parties cannot possibly do justice to the claims of three parties to fair representation in the House of Commons.

It is true that some statesmen regard the rise of a new party with fear and trembling; they imagine that it forebodes the bankruptcy of democratic inst.i.tutions, the success of which, in their judgment, is necessarily bound up with the maintenance of the two-party system. The two-party system must indeed be a plant of tender growth if it depends for existence upon the maintenance of antiquated electoral methods. But those politicians who deprecate any change on the ground that single-member const.i.tuencies afford the only means by which the two-party system can be preserved, have failed to explain why this electoral system has not prevented the growth of Labour parties in Australia and in England, or why numerous parties and single-member const.i.tuencies go hand in hand both in France and Germany. Single-member const.i.tuencies may distort and falsify the representation of parties, but they cannot prevent the coming of a new party if that party is the outcome, the expression, of a new political force.

_The new political conditions and electoral reform._

Why should the rise of a new party cause so much uneasiness? Can democracy make no use of that increased diffusion of political intelligence from which springs these new political movements? Mr.

Asquith takes no such pessimistic view. He, least, realises that our present system is not necessarily the final stage in the development of representative government. He does not imagine that, whilst we welcome progress in all things else, we must at all costs adhere to the electoral methods which have done duty in the past. Speaking at St.

Andrews, 19 February 1906, he declared that: "It was infinitely to the advantage of the House of Commons, if it was to be a real reflection and mirror of the national mind, that there should be no strain of opinion honestly entertained by any substantial body of the King's subjects which should not find there representation and speech. No student of political development could have supposed that we should always go along in the same old groove, one party on one side and another party on the other side, without the intermediate ground being occupied, as it was in every other civilized country, by groups and factions having special ideas and interests of their own. If real and genuine and intelligent opinion was more split up than it used to be, and if we could not now cla.s.sify everybody by the same simple process, we must accept the new conditions and adapt our machinery to them, our party organization, our representative system, and the whole scheme and form of our government."

This is not a chance saying, standing by itself, for a fortnight later, speaking at Morley, Mr. Asquith added: "Let them have a House of Commons which fully reflected every strain of opinion; that was what made democratic government in the long run not only safer and more free, but more stable." Mr. Asquith's statements take cognizance of the fact that a great divergence between the theoretical and actual composition of the House of Commons must make for instability, and his p.r.o.nouncement is an emphatic reinforcement of the arguments contained in the earlier portion of this chapter.

On a more important occasion, when replying to an influential deputation of members of Parliament and others,[10] Mr. Asquith, with all the responsibility which attaches to the words of a Prime Minister, made this further statement: "I have said in public before now, and am therefore only repeating an opinion which I have never ceased to hold, namely, that there can be no question in the mind of any one familiar with the actual operation of our const.i.tutional system that it permits, and I might say that it facilitates--but it certainly permits--a minority of voters, whether in the country at large or in particular const.i.tuencies, to determine the representation--the relative representation in the one case of the whole nation, and the actual representation in the other case of the particular const.i.tuency--sometimes in defiance of the opinions and wishes of the majority of the electors. The moment you have stated that as a fact which cannot be disputed, and it cannot be contradicted by any one, you have pointed out a flaw of a most serious character, and some might say of an almost fatal character, when your const.i.tutional and Parliamentary system appears at the bar of judgment upon the issue whether or not it does from the democratic point of view really carry out the first principles of representative government. I therefore agree that it is impossible to defend the rough and ready method which has been hitherto adopted as a proper or satisfactory explanation of the representative principle. It is not merely, as more than one speaker has pointed out, that under our existing system a minority in the country may return a majority of the House of Commons, but what more frequently happens, and what I am disposed to agree is equally injurious in its results, is that you have almost always a great disproportion in the relative size of the majority and minority in the House of Commons as compared with their relative size in the const.i.tuencies. That is the normal condition of our House of Commons. I have had experience of some of the inconveniences which result." In speaking at Burnley in support of the Parliament Bill during the electoral campaign of December 1910, Mr. Asquith again laid stress upon the need of making the House of Commons fully representative. "It is," he said, "an essential and integral feature of our policy ... that we shall go forward with the task of making the House of Commons not only the mouthpiece but the mirror of the national mind."

There can be no doubt that the question of electoral methods must now occupy a prominent place in all discussions which centre around the purpose, efficiency and authority of the House of Commons. John Bright, in addressing the people of Birmingham, on the eve of an election, exhorted them to "bear in mind that you are going to make a machine more important than any that is made in the manufactories of Birmingham ... a stupendous machine whose power no man can measure." [11] Can we afford in the manufacture of such a machine to be content with rough and ready methods of election? Accuracy and precision are being demanded with ever-increasing force in all other departments of human activity; on what grounds then can we in the most delicate of all--that of government--refuse to recognize their value? The necessity of ensuring the predominance of the House of Commons in our const.i.tutional system, the problem created by the rise of the Labour Party, the increased recognition of the need of reform, cannot but contribute to one result.

The House of Commons will make itself more fully representative by the adoption of more trustworthy electoral methods, and in so doing will not only increase its stability and efficiency, but will render its const.i.tutional position impregnable.

The indispensable preliminaries to any such change are, in the first place, an a.n.a.lysis of the results, both direct and indirect, of existing methods and, in the second place, a careful comparison of the improvements possible. The subsequent chapters will be devoted to both these aspects of the problem, for in the elucidation of the system most suited to British conditions, the experience of those countries which, faced with the necessity for change, have already introduced new methods into their electoral systems, will be found to be of the highest value.