Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election Part 7

"Le depute, au lieu de representer la majorite des electeurs, devient prisonnier de la minorite qui lui a donne l'appoint necessaire pour son election."

--YVES GUYOT

" ... every fool knows that a man represents Not the fellers that sent him, but them on the fence."

--J. RUSSELL LOWELL

_Three-cornered contests._

It was stated in the first chapter that the rise of the Labour Party as a political force, with an organization wholly independent of those of the older parties, would make a change in our voting system imperative.

Both prior and subsequent to the appointment of the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems political organizations have shown themselves keenly alive to the necessity of such a change. At the meeting of the General Committee of the National Liberal Federation at Leicester, on 21 February 1908, a resolution in favour of the early adoption of the second ballot was carried unanimously. The Trades Union Congress, at its meeting in September 1908, less eager to p.r.o.nounce in favour of a reform of such doubtful value, pa.s.sed a resolution in favour of an authoritative "inquiry into proportional representation, preference or second ballots, so that the most effective means of securing the true representation of the electors may be embodied in the new Reform Bill."

The spokesman of a deputation from the Manchester Liberal Federation, which waited upon Mr. Winston Churchill on 22 May 1909, said: "The point on which we wish to speak to you to-day is the reform of the present system of voting, which we hold to be out of date, archaic, and in great need of reform." Mr. Churchill's reply was a significant reinforcement of Mr. Asquith's previous declaration, that "it was impossible to defend the present rough and ready methods." "I think,"

said Mr. Churchill, "the present system has clearly broken down. The results produced are not fair to any party, nor to any section of the community. In many cases they do not secure majority representation, nor do they secure an intelligent representation of minorities. All they secure is fluke representation, freak representation, capricious representation." The figures of two bye-elections--those of the Jarrow Division of Durham and the Attercliffe Division of Sheffield--will show how completely Mr. Churchill's language is justified. The figures are as follows:--

JARROW ELECTION, 4 July 1907

Curran (Labour) 4,698 Rose-Innes (Conservative) 3,930 Hughes (Liberal) 3,474 O'Hanlon (Nationalist) 2,124 ___ 14,226

ATTERCLIFFE ELECTION, 4 May 1909

Pointer (Labour) . . . . 3,531 King-Farrow (Unionist) . . . 3,380 Lambert (Liberal) . . . . 3,175 Wilson (Ind. Unionist) . . . 2,803 ___ 12,889

In the case of Jarrow the successful candidate obtained just less than one-third of the votes polled, and in the case of Attercliffe the member returned represented a little more than a quarter of the electors. The representation which results from elections of this kind is without doubt most capricious and uncertain in character. A House of Commons so built up could have no claim to be representative of the nation, and its composition would be so unstable as seriously to impair its efficiency.

Nor can we afford to regard such elections as being a mere temporary feature of our parliamentary system. The General Election of 1906 showed a notable increase in the number of three-cornered fights over previous general elections, and the bye-elections during the four years 1906--1909 were marked by a still further increase. The Report submitted by the Executive Committee of the Labour Party to the Portsmouth Conference in January 1909 foreshadowed a very large addition to the number of Labour candidates. Some thirty-eight candidates, in addition to the then existing Labour members in Parliament, had been formally approved by the Executive Committee of the Labour Party after due election by the Labour organizations to which the candidates belonged, and although const.i.tuencies were not found for all of these new candidates, the number of three-cornered contests in the election of Jan. 1910, in which Liberal, Unionist, Labour (or Socialist) took part, was no less than forty-one, and this number would have been greater had not several Liberal candidates withdrawn. Owing to the desire on the part of the Liberal and Labour parties to avoid the risk of losing seats there were in the elections of December 1910 fewer three-cornered fights. But the Labour party, the permanence of which is no longer open to question, will not be content to remain with its present share of representation. It can however gain additional seats only at the expense of the older parties, and although the Liberal party, as in the Mid-Derby bye-election of May 1908, may sometimes yield seats to Labour nominees, it is not to be expected that the Liberal organizations will always be willing to give way. At the Mid-Glamorgan bye-election in May 1910 the local organization, against the advice of the chief Liberal Whip, nominated a Liberal candidate, and succeeded in retaining the seat although it had been "ear-marked" by the Labour Party. In Scotland, where Liberalism is less complaisant than in England, no seat has been surrendered to the Labour Party without a fight, and when a Labour candidature was threatened in December 1910, in the Bridgeton division of Glasgow, the Liberals retaliated by threatening to place a Liberal candidate in the Blackfriars division where Mr. Barnes, the Labour representative was again standing. These facts should dispel any illusion, if such still exist, that the problem of three-cornered fights is a transitory phenomenon which can safely be ignored. The political organizations, with a true instinct, have realized the importance and urgency of this problem, and increasing pressure will doubtless be brought to bear upon the Government to introduce a system of second ballots, or some other electoral method, that will give effect to what Mr. Churchill has described as "the broad democratic principle, that a majority of voters in any electoral unit, acting together, shall be able to return their man." The advocates of the second ballot and cognate methods of reform seek a solution of this one problem only. They desire to maintain the essential characteristic of the present system--the exclusive representation of the majority in each const.i.tuency--and make no attempt to remedy any of the other evils a.s.sociated with single-member const.i.tuencies. But the question at once arises whether the problem of three-cornered contests can be solved by attempts to preserve the distinctive feature of the present system--the representation of the majority only. A little reflection must convince the reader that such a solution deals with the form of the problem rather than with its essence. For the new problem arises from the fact that three parties instead of two are now seeking representation in Parliament, and no remedy can be regarded as effective which does not provide for the realization of the legitimate aspirations of all three parties. This the system of second ballots has completely failed to do; indeed its results only reinforce the arguments of previous chapters, that so long as we compel the electors of any one district, whatever their divisions of opinion, to be all represented by one man, their real representation will be impossible. An examination of the effects of the second ballot in those countries in which the system has been tried fully justifies these statements, and fortunately the body of experience now available is so considerable that the conclusions to be drawn therefrom have an authoritative character.

_The second ballot._

The Reports furnished by His Majesty's representatives abroad show that the second ballot, in one form or another, is, or has been, in force in the majority of continental countries. The forms differ in detail, but reference need only be made to the three chief types. In Germany the two candidates highest at the first poll proceed to a second election. It was this form of the second ballot that was introduced into New Zealand in 1908. In France all candidates in the original election and even fresh candidates may stand at the second election. At this second poll a relative--not an absolute--majority of votes is sufficient to secure the election of a candidate. As a rule only the two candidates highest at the first election take part in the second ballot, and therefore in practice the German and French methods closely approximate to one another. The third type concerns the application of the second ballot to the _scrutin de liste_ or block vote in multi-member const.i.tuencies. It was formerly used in the Belgian parliamentary elections, and is still employed in the election for the Belgian Provincial Councils. The candidates who receive the support of an absolute majority of the electors voting at the first ballot are at once declared elected; the candidates next highest on the poll, but only so many as are equal to double the number of vacancies remaining to be filled, take part in a second ballot.

The object of the second ballot--to ensure that every elected candidate should finally have obtained the support of a majority of the electors voting in the const.i.tuency for which he has been returned--has, generally speaking, been achieved. But that does not solve the problem of the representation of three parties; a general election based on such a system yields results which are far from satisfactory. The party which is unsuccessful in one const.i.tuency may suffer the same fate in the majority of the const.i.tuencies, and this is the fatal flaw in all forms of the second ballot. Moreover experience has shown, and it is evident _a priori_, that with this system the representation of any section of political opinion depends not upon the number of its supporters, but very largely upon the att.i.tude taken towards it by other parties. For, at a second ballot, the result is determined by the action of those smaller minorities which were at the bottom of the poll at the first ballot. No party can be certain of securing representation unless in its own strength it can obtain an absolute majority in at least some of the const.i.tuencies. The largest party in the State, if its voting strength is evenly distributed, may be at the mercy of hostile combinations at the second ballots, unless it is so large as to command a majority of votes throughout the country, and when three parties have entered the political arena it rarely happens that any one of them is in this favourable position. That being so, the new element of uncertainty a.s.sociated with the system of second ballots may yield results which are further removed from the true representation of the whole electorate than the results of the first ballots.

_Experience in Germany._

Continental experience has shown that the coalitions at the second ballots are of two types. One party may incur the hostility of all other parties, and if so, the second ballots will tend uniformly to the suppression of that party. The combination of parties whose aims and purposes are to some degree allied may be regarded as legitimate, but the c.u.mulative effect of such combinations over a large area is most unfair to the party adversely affected. No defence at all can be urged in palliation of the evils of certain other coalitions also characteristic of second ballots--the coalitions of extreme and opposed parties which temporarily combine for the purpose of wrecking a third party in the hope of s.n.a.t.c.hing some advantage from the resulting political situation. Sometimes such coalitions are merely the expression of resentment by an advanced party at the action of a party somewhat less advanced than itself. But, whatever the cause, the coalitions at the second ballots do not result in the creation of a fully representative legislative chamber; on the contrary, they tend to take away all sincerity from the parliamentary system. Ill.u.s.trations of the first type of coalitions abound. The German general elections afford numerous examples, but as a special note on the working of the second ballots in Germany is to be found in Appendix II., it will suffice to quote some of the results of the election of 1907. The Social Democrats were engaged at the second ballots in ninety const.i.tuencies. At the first ballots they were at the head of the poll in forty-four of these const.i.tuencies, but at the second ballots they only succeeded in retaining that position in eleven. In the forty-six const.i.tuencies in which they were second at the poll they were only able to improve their condition in three cases. These figures show how the German Social Democrats suffered from hostile combinations. It was with the utmost difficulty that they obtained representation in const.i.tuencies other than those in which at the first elections they were in an absolute majority. No wonder that one of the planks of the platform of the Social Democratic party is proportional representation.

_Austria._

The Social Democrats of Austria suffered in the General Election of 1907 in the same way. Professor Kedlich,[1] in an article ent.i.tled "The Working of Universal Suffrage in Austria," wrote as follows: "The Christian Socialists have ninety-six seats in the new House, the Social Democrats eighty-six ... The number of seats won by them weighs still heavier in the balance when we reflect that in many second ballots the majority of the opponents of social democracy joined their forces against them. Not less instructive are the relative numbers of the votes recorded for each of the parties. Over a million votes were given to the Social Democrats as against 531,000 for the Christian Socialists." Such results destroy the representative character of legislative bodies. The same lesson on a smaller scale is to be gathered from the Italian elections. Speaking of the General Election of 1904, the Rome correspondent of _The Morning Post_ pointed out that, in not a few const.i.tuencies, like the second division of Rome, a rally of Clericals at the second ballots enabled the Conservative Monarchists to triumph over the Socialists.

_Belgium._

The combinations of allied parties against a third party, as in the examples already given, may be defended, but the coalitions at second ballots, as has been pointed out, are not always of this character.

Should parties, angered and embittered by being deprived of representation, use their power at the second ballots to render a stable Government impossible, then the results are disastrous. Such were the conditions which obtained in Belgium before the abandonment of second ballots. "The system," says Sir Arthur Hardinge, "answered well enough so long as only two parties contested an election; but the moment the Socialist Party formed a distinct third party, after the establishment of universal suffrage in 1894, it began to act in a manner which produced unsatisfactory results.... The overwhelming victory of the Clerical party in 1894 was largely due to the fact that in every second ballot between Catholics and Socialists the Liberals voted for the former, whilst in every second ballot between Catholics and Liberals, with the single exception of the Thuin Division, the Socialists preferred the Catholics as the creators of universal suffrage and as, in some respects, a more genuinely democratic party, to the Liberals, whom the Labour leaders regarded with peculiar hatred as the apostles of free compet.i.tion and individualism. In 1896 the Socialists were in their turn the victims, as the Liberals had been in 1894, of the working of the system of second ballots. Liberal electors at these elections voted everywhere at the second ballots for Clerical against Labour candidates, with the result that the Clericals won every one of the eighteen seats for Brussels, although the total number of Clerical electors in a total electorate of 202,000 was only 89,000, as against 40,000 Liberals and 73,000 ultra-Radicals and Labour men. Two years later the Liberals swung round to an alliance with the Socialists against the Clericals, and in several const.i.tuencies, owing to the system of second ballots, the Socialists, although actually in a minority, won all the seats with the help of the Liberals, who on the first ballot had voted unsuccessfully for Liberal as against both Catholic and Labour candidates. It was the practical experience of conditions such as these which gradually convinced all the Belgian parties that, given a three-cornered fight in every, or nearly every, const.i.tuency, the only way of preventing a minority from turning the scales and excluding from all representation the views of nearly half the electorate was to adopt the system of proportional representation."[2]

Count Goblet d'Alviella furnishes an excellent example of the working of the second ballots at Verviers in the General Election of 1898, the last parliamentary election in Belgium, at which second ballots were used. In the election for Senators the Socialists spoiled the chances of the Liberals by voting for the Clericals, whilst, in the election for the Chamber, the Liberals, not to be outdone, spoiled the chances of the Socialists by also supporting the Clericals. The Clericals thus obtained all the seats both in the Senate and in the Chamber with the a.s.sistance of the Socialists and of the Liberals in turn. The absurdities of the General Election of 1898 were so flagrant that on the day after the election so determined an opponent of proportional representation as _La Chronique_ exclaimed, "Can anything be more absurd than the working of the second ballots in this country? ... What becomes of the moral force of an election in which parties are obliged, if they wish to win, to implore the support of electors who yesterday were their enemies? Such support is never obtained without conditions, and these conditions are either promises which it is not intended to keep or a surrender of principles--in either case a proceeding utterly immoral."[3]

_France_.]

French elections also furnish examples of the use of the second ballots for the purpose of fostering dissension between opponents. At the General Election in 1906 it was stated that the Conservatives in the South of France, despairing of obtaining representation themselves, intended to support the Socialists at the second ballot in the hope of obtaining an advantage by accentuating the difference between the Socialists and the Radicals. M. Jaures indignantly denied that there was any understanding between the Socialists and the Conservatives, and took advantage of the accusation to write in _L'Humanite_ a powerful plea for proportional representation. "This reform," he declared, "would make such unnatural alliances impossible. Each party would be induced and, indeed, it would be to each party's advantage to fight its own battle, for every group would have an opportunity of obtaining its full share of representation. There would no longer be any question of doubtful manoeuvres, of confused issues; Socialism would have its advocates, Radicalism its exponents, Conservatism its leaders, and there would be a magnificent propaganda of principles which would inevitably result in the political education of the electorate. Every movement would be a.s.sured of representation in proportion to its real strength in the country; every party, freed from the necessity of entering into alliances which invariably beget suspicion, would be able to formulate quite clearly its essential principles; governmental and administrative corruption would be reduced to a minimum; the real wishes of the people would find expression; and if parties still continued to dispute for power, it would be to enable them to promote the more effectually the measures for which they stood." In spite, however, of this eloquent disclaimer on the part of M. Jaures, the Conservatives have at the bye-elections continued their policy of supporting the Socialists. The bye election of Charolles in December 1908 is a case in point. At the first ballot the figures were as follows:--

M. Sarrien fils (Radical) 5,770 votes M. Duoarouge (Socialist) 4,367 "

M. Magnien (Conservative) 3,968 "

At the second ballot--

M. Ducarouge (Socialist) 6,841 " Elected M. Sarrien fils (Radical) 5,339 "

M. Magnien (Conservative) 301 "

It should be explained that the Conservative candidate, although his name still appeared upon the ballot paper, retired before the second election, and it is evident that the votes of many of his supporters were given to the Socialist candidate. In the following April (1909) several further instances occurred. At Uzes a vacancy was caused by the death of a Radical Socialist member who, at the General Election of 1906, had beaten the Duc d'Uzes, a Reactionary, the Socialist candidate on that occasion being at the bottom of the poll. In the bye-election the Socialist was returned at the head of the poll, but so obvious was the fact that the Socialist owed his victory to Conservative support, that he was received in the Chamber by the Radicals with the cry of "M.

le duc d'Uzes." Uzes was typical of other elections and, as the Paris correspondent of _The Morning Post_ remarked, "the successes of the Unified Socialists in the recent series of bye-elections are in part to be attributed to the votes of the Reactionaries, who voted for the Unified candidates as being enemies of the Republic." This abuse of the purpose of second ballots--an abuse engendered by the failure of the minority to obtain direct representation--destroys the last semblance of sincerity in the representation of a const.i.tuency, and must hasten the abolition of the second ballots in France in the same way as combinations of a similar nature rendered imperative the introduction of a more rational system of election in Belgium.

The foregoing facts are sufficient to show that a system of second ballots does not necessarily result in the formation of a legislative chamber fully representative of the electorate. In Germany the largest party has had its representation ruthlessly cut down by the operation of the second ballots. Indeed, were it not for the overwhelming predominance of this party in certain areas it might not have obtained any representation whatever. In Belgium the effect of the second ballots was to deprive the middle party, the Liberals, of their fair share of representation. In 1896, owing to the coalitions of Socialists and Catholics at the polls, the Liberals had only eleven representatives in the popular chamber. All their leaders had been driven from Parliament, their electoral a.s.sociations had become completely disorganized save in some large towns, and in many const.i.tuencies they had ceased to take part in elections. Yet the results of the very first elections (1900) after the establishment of proportional representation, showed that the Liberals were the second largest party in the State, and that it was a party which still responded to the needs and still gave voice to the views of large numbers of citizens.

_The bargainings at the second ballots in France_.]

The system of second ballots not only deprives large sections of the electorate of representation, but the very coalitions which produce this result bring parliamentary inst.i.tutions into still further disrepute.

These coalitions are condemned in unequivocal terms by Continental writers and statesmen of widely differing schools of thought. The scathing language of M. Jaures has already been quoted, and we find his views endorsed by politicians of the type of M. Deschanel, an ex-President of the Chamber of Deputies, who declared that these coalitions entirely falsify the character of the popular verdict. Again, M. Yves Guyot, an ex-Minister, a.s.serts that "the second ballots give rise to detestable bargainings which obliterate all political sense in the electors." M. Raymond Poincare, a Senator and a former Minister, condemns the system of second ballots in equally forcible language. "It will be of no use," he says, "to replace one kind of const.i.tuency by another if we do not, at the same time, suppress the gamble of the majority system and the jobbery of the second ballots." These expressions of opinion on the part of individual French politicians could be multiplied, but it will be sufficient to add to them the more formal and official declaration of the Commission du Suffrage Universel, a Parliamentary Committee appointed by the Chamber of Deputies. In the Report issued by this Committee in 1907, it is declared that "the abolition of the second ballots with the bargainings to which they give rise will not be the least of the advantages of the new system [proportional representation]."

_The "Kuh-Handel" in Germany._

It would appear that the German second ballots are also characterized by this same evil of bargaining. Karl Blind, writing in _The Nineteenth Century_, March 1907, stated that "in this last election the oddest combinations have taken place for the ballots in the various parts of the Empire and within different States. There was no uniformity of action as to coming to a compromise between Conservative and Liberal, or Liberal and Social Democrat, or Centre and any other party, as against some supposed common enemy who was to be ousted from his insufficient majority by a subsequent alliance between otherwise discordant groups, or who wanted to have his insufficient majority increased to an absolute one by the addition of the vote of one of the defeated candidates whose friends finally choose the 'lesser evil'....

"To some extent these necessary, but sometimes rather sordid, transactions are made all the more difficult through the very existence of separate States with 'Home Rule' legislatures of their own. Political development has in them gone so far in a centrifugal sense that the nation has been sadly split up and the public mind too much divided into merely local concerns and issues....

"Irrespective of this baneful influence of a so-called 'Home Rule' state of things on the life of the nation at large, I must confess that the huckstering at the second ballots does not strike me as an ideal inst.i.tution. It generally goes, in Germany, under the name of _Kuh-Handel_ (cow-bargain). It often brings out the worst symptoms of intrigue and political immorality.... Those who dabble in the _Kuh-Handel_ either lead their own contingent as allies into an enemy's camp from spite against another adversary, or they induce their own men to desist from voting at all at a second ballot, so as to give a chance to another candidate, whom they really detest with all their heart, but whom they wish to use as a means of spiting one still more deeply hated."

_The position of a deputy elected at a second ballot_.]

The separate experiences, therefore, of France, Belgium, and Germany all yield convincing and corroborative testimony to the demoralizing influence on political life which results from the coalitions at the second ballots. Insufficient attention, however, has been directed to one aspect of this influence, its pernicious effect upon the inner working of parliamentary inst.i.tutions. The deputy who is elected as the result of a coalition of forces at the second ballot finds himself in an extremely difficult and unstable position. Instead of being the representative of the majority of the electors he too often becomes, in the apt phrase of M. Yves Guyot, "the prisoner of the minority," and, whilst in Parliament, he is being continually reminded of the power of that minority to make or unmake him at the next election. The persistent pressure of that minority explains those contradictory votes in the French Chamber which, to a foreigner, are often incomprehensible. The deputy will usually act in accordance with the opinion of the group to which he belongs and vote accordingly, but at a subsequent sitting he will find it necessary to vote in such a way as will give satisfaction to that minority whose support a.s.sured his success at the previous election, and without whose support he cannot hope for re-election when the time comes for a fresh appeal to the country. The pressure which such a minority can exert must often be intolerable, and must, in any case, render it impossible for any deputy either to do justice to himself or to the legislative chamber to which he belongs.[3]

_The alternative vote._

The shortcomings of the system of the second ballot are so p.r.o.nounced and are so generally recognized that there now exists but little, if any, demand for its introduction into this country, and more attention has therefore been given to the mechanism of the alternative vote as affording a means of securing the object of the second ballot whilst avoiding many of its inconveniences. Under this suggested plan the voter is invited to mark his preferences against the names of the candidates on the voting paper by putting the figure "1" against his first favourite; the figure "2" against the man he next prefers, and so on through as many names as he may choose to mark. At the end of the poll the number of papers in which each candidate's name is marked "1" is ascertained, and if one of them is found to have secured the first preferences of an absolute majority of all the persons voting, he is declared elected; but if no candidate has obtained such a majority the papers of the candidate who has obtained the least number of first preferences are examined and transferred one by one to the candidate marked "2" upon them. In this transfer, the papers on which only one preference had been marked would be ignored, the preferences, to use the current phrase, being "exhausted." If, as the result of this transfer, any candidate has secured the support of an absolute majority of the number of effective preferences he is declared duly elected; but if there is still no candidate with an absolute majority the process is repeated by distributing the papers of the candidate who is left with the lowest number of votes, and so on until some candidate has got an absolute majority of effective preferences.

The alternative vote undoubtedly possesses many and valuable advantages as compared with the second ballot. In the first place, its introduction into the English electoral system would keep English voters in touch with Colonial rather than with Continental practice. Preferential voting[4] has been in use in Queensland since 1892; it was adopted in 1907 by the West Australian Parliament, and was proposed in a Bill submitted by Mr. Deakin to the Australian Commonwealth Parliament in 1906. Moreover, the alternative vote enables the election to be completed in a single ballot; and the fortnight that is wasted between the first and second ballots on the Continent would be saved. There has also been claimed for this method of voting this further advantage, that it would prepare the way (perhaps by rendering it inevitable) for the more complete reform--proportional representation.

The principle of the alternative vote is extremely simple. It is embodied in two Bills which were introduced into the House of Commons in 1908 by Mr. John M. Robertson and by Mr. Dundas White; and also in a modified form in a Bill introduced in 1907 by Mr. A.E. Dunn. Its purpose and mechanism is set forth in the memorandum of Mr. Robertson's Bill as follows:--

"The object is to ensure that in a parliamentary election effect shall be given as far as possible to the wishes of the majority of electors voting. Under the present system when there are more than two candidates for one seat it is possible that the member elected may be chosen by a minority of the voters.

"The Bill proposes to allow electors to indicate on their ballot papers to what candidate they would wish their votes to be transferred if the candidate of their first choice is third or lower on the poll and no candidate has an absolute majority. It thus seeks to accomplish by one operation the effect of a second ballot."

Mr. Robertson's Bill, as originally introduced in 1906, was applicable to single-member const.i.tuencies only; but the amended form in which the Bill was re-introduced provided for the use of the transferable vote in double-member const.i.tuencies as well, but, in doing so, still maintained the essential characteristic of the existing system of voting--that each member returned should have obtained the support of a majority of the electors voting. Mr. Dundas White, however, in applying the alternative vote to double-member const.i.tuencies, made a departure from this principle, and proposed to render it possible for a candidate to be returned who had obtained the support of less than one-half but more than one-third of the voters.[5] The effect of Mr. Robertson's Bill would have been that it would still be possible in double-member const.i.tuencies for the party finally victorious to secure both seats; whilst with Mr. Dundas White's provisions the two largest parties would in all probability have obtained one seat each.[6]

The difference between the two measures is, however, of no great consequence; the number of double-member const.i.tuencies is not very large, and their number may be still further reduced in any future scheme of redistribution of seats. It will, therefore, be sufficient to consider what effect the alternative vote would have in single-member areas. Let us take the Jarrow election, in which there were four candidates, and apply to that election the possible working of the alternative vote. The figures for the election may be repeated:--

Curran(Labour) . . . . 4,698 Rose-limes (Unionist). . . 3,930 Hughes (Liberal) . . . . 3,474 O'Hanlon (Nationalist) . . 2,122

The electors would, with the alternative vote, have numbered the candidates on the ballot papers in the order of their choice, and, as none of the candidates had obtained an absolute majority, the votes of the lowest candidate on the poll would be transferred to the second preferences marked by his supporters. If, for purposes of ill.u.s.tration, it is a.s.sumed that every one of the 2122 supporters of Mr. O'Hanlon had indicated a second preference, that 1000 had chosen Mr. Curran, 1000 had chosen Mr. Hughes, and 122 had chosen Mr. Rose-Innes, then the following table will show the effect of the transfer:--