John H. Humphreys

“ I know nothing which is more corrupting, both to the electors or to the elected, than that process; and although I have fully seen the difficulties which attach to what is commonly known as minority representation, it surely is an extraordinary criticism upon our existing system that, while a small handful of interested people can turn an election one way or the other on their own personal issue, huge minorities, like the minority of the Unionists in Scotland, are utterly and grossly unrepresented. We give every privilege to the little knot of people in the individual constituencies ”

“ Now the variety and elasticity of representation, which are the secret of the permanence of our institutions, are directly injured by any attempt to narrow the basis of a party. If such attempts were to succeed upon any considerable scale we should have a couple of machine-made parties confronting one another in Parliament, with no golden bridges between their irreconcilable programmes. There is some danger at the present day of an approximation to a state of things in every way to be deprecated, and it is surely not for the Unionist party to promote any movement tending in that direction. ”

“ But those upheavals in representation, those violent swings of the pendulum which have often been so pronounced a feature of elections, give an instability to the composition of our supreme legislative chamber that must still further undermine its authority. Many, indeed, imagining that this dangerous instability is the reflection of an equally unstable electorate, begin to question whether a popular franchise is in any circumstances a satisfactory basis for government. ”

“ But this assertion raises the question whether the method of voting for the purpose of selecting the members of an assembly, to which the affairs of an empire, a nation or a city, are to be entrusted, can only be regarded as practicable if it is adapted to the capacity of the least intelligent of the electors. Must a nation continue to suffer all the evils which arise from an imperfect electoral system because some of its citizens may be so unintelligent as to be unable to make use of an improved method? ”

“ Our present system—exclusive majority representation—has often, as we have seen, resulted in a gross exaggeration of the majority, sometimes in the total suppression of the minority; and, on other occasions, in the return of a majority of representatives by a minority of the electors. These evils have happened when only two parties have been seeking representation; when a third party enters the political arena the system completely breaks down, and all efforts to restore "majority" representation by a system of second ballots have proved an absolute failure. ”

“ Proportional representation is, as it were, the master key which unlocks the difficulties associated with a comprehensive measure of electoral reform. Based on a broad simple principle, the justice of which is apparent to all, it provides the means by which each of the separate parts of such a measure can be most easily and effectively dealt with. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive on what other principle any permanent solution of the electoral problem can be based, or by what other means the difficulties inherent in a comprehensive measure of reform can be successfully overcome. ”

“ When being examined before the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Municipal Representation Bill, Mr. J. J. Stephenson, a member of the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, was asked, "Do you think that the system of voting proposed in the Bill would offer any difficulties to working men?" His reply was emphatic. "No. I have had some experience of working men, and I have never found them any slower in intelligence than any other part of the community—there are few working men who could not tell in order of merit the men they wanted to vote for. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The compulsory marking of preferences when the elector has none may still further vitiate the results of elections in a most undesirable way, whilst abstention from preference marking merely deprives those abstaining of a privilege which they might exercise if they chose. It is quite conceivable that an elector after voting for the candidate of his choice may be indifferent to the fate of the remaining candidates and, if so, an enforced expression of opinion on his part would not be of any real value, and should not be counted in determining the result of an election. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 assured of representation in proportion to its real strength in the country ”

“ The scrupulous care with which the rights of the minorities were respected is the secret of the wonderful rapidity with which the enormous difficulties involved in the task were overcome. Not only were minorities awarded full representation on this Convention, but every facility was afforded them in the choice of their delegates. The sense of justice and the spirit of reasonableness go always hand in hand, and the spirit of reasonableness alone makes possible the smooth and efficient working of the legislative machine. ”

“ Perhaps the most pregnant sentence in this whole report is that in which the Commission suggests that proportional representation might be a suitable basis for an elective Senate. We have our liberty of choice, and democracy may find its account in either alternative. We may prefer to retain an imperfectly representative Lower House. But if we place above it a really representative Senate the whole balance of the Constitution might be altered, and the Senate become the more venerable, the more democratic, and in the end, the more powerful Chamber. ”

“ Victory at the polls depends not so much upon the services which a statesman, however eminent, may have rendered to his country, as upon the ability of the party to maintain its majority in the particular constituency for which he stands. Indeed, in this matter a leader of opinion is placed at a disadvantage as compared with an ordinary member of the party; his very pre-eminence, his very activities bring him into conflict with certain sections of the electorate which, insignificant in themselves, may yet be sufficiently numerous to influence the result of an election. ”

“ To apply one system of proportional representation to the parliamentary elections, another to municipal elections, and to maintain the majority system for the provincial elections, is really too absurd. ”

“ False impressions of public opinion, unstable legislation, the weakening of the House of Commons, both in authority and in personnel, the degradation of party warfare, the undue exaltation of party machinery, the heightening of racial differences and of sectional interests, these are the fruits of that rough and ready system of Parliamentary elections with which hitherto we have been content. ”

“ Secures neither one vote, one value nor true representation. Further, it has been proved beyond question that a redistribution of seats will, if single-member constituencies are retained, fail to accomplish the end which its advocates have in view, namely, one vote one value. For redistribution can only secure equality in the size of electoral districts, and this is not the same as equality in the value of votes. With equal electoral districts it would still be possible in two adjoining constituencies for one member to be returned by a large majority and the other by a small majority. ”

“ The violence of the change in representation is attributed to the character of the electors instead of to the evil effects of a defective electoral method. On the other hand, the large majorities which accompany such changes are regarded by other politicians as blessings in disguise—as being essential to the formation of a strong Government. But a Government based on a false majority will, in the long-run, find that this exaggeration of its support in the country is a source of weakness rather than of strength. ”

“ The United Kingdom itself presents a conspicuous example of a nation in which the process of unification is still far from complete, and the process has been retarded, and is at the present time being retarded, by the electoral method in force. Not only does Ireland still continue to chafe against the Union, but the racial divisions within Ireland itself are encouraged and fostered by the failure of our representative system to do justice to minorities. ”

“ If it is desired that the body should not be a representation of a single interest and a single class of opinions, some means must be adopted to guard against its falling entirely into the hands of the dominant party. With this view we would recommend that, in the election of the council, each elector should have as many votes as there might be members to be chosen, and should be entitled to give all these votes to a single candidate, or to distribute them among several. ”

“ 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 constituencies 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 constituencies go hand in hand both in France and Germany. ”

“ Now under a system of proportional representation a candidate in any constituency, were it Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow, would have to secure about 10,000 votes before he could be sure of being returned, and it is incredible that in any of these constituencies so large a number of voters would support candidatures such as those described by Professor Jenks, or that political feeling is so weak that Liberal, Conservative, and Labour candidates would be set aside in favour of candidates standing for a single interest only. ”

“ 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 constitutional 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The attempts made in the past to secure the special representation of minorities, though most successful in many respects, have been of an empirical character, and have dealt with the problem in a very partial way. Yet it is not difficult to find a solution for all these problems which is at the same time satisfactory and effective. It is only necessary to return to the first principles of democracy, to keep steadily in view the meaning of that self-government which we desire to achieve through representative institutions. ”

“ If a referendum is really wanted, a general election with single-member constituencies 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 assembly. 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. ”

“ 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 constituency—and make no attempt to remedy any of the other evils associated with single-member constituencies. ”

“ But proportional representation, in rendering more difficult the passing of legislation conceived in a partisan spirit, will save the time and energy of Parliament for legislation which is more in accordance with the nation's will. The history of the numerous Education and Licensing Bills which have been presented to Parliament during the two decades 1890-1910 furnish an excellent example of the way in which a rigid party system results in the waste of parliamentary time. ”

“ Although the fear lest proportional representation should weaken the party system is now the most serious obstacle in the way of its acceptance by the practical politician, yet there are others who warmly approve of the principle, who regard proportional representation as the ideal, but still entertain some doubts as to its practicability, and therefore shrink from a whole-hearted advocacy of the reform. ”