Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election Part 10

F.D. Monk, K.C., to the appointment of a committee of the House of Commons for the purpose of investigating methods of proportional representation. Further, the Trades and Labour Congress, the chief organization of this kind in Canada, the Toronto District Labour Council, and the Winnipeg District Trades Council, employ the proportional method in the election of their committees.

_Oregon._

In the fight for the more popular control of politics in the United States proportional representation will apparently play no mean part.

The object of the People's Power League of Oregon is to free the representative a.s.semblies of the State from the domination of political bosses, and an amendment to the const.i.tution, providing for the adoption of proportional representation was, on the initiative of this League, submitted to the electorate in 1908 and carried with a large majority.

The Oregon Legislature, which met in January 1909, was bitterly opposed to the change, and refused to pa.s.s the Representation Bill which was required to give effect to the decision of the electorate. A new proportional representation amendment, which was self-enactive, was submitted to the popular vote in November 1910, in conjunction with other proposed const.i.tutional changes, but failed to meet with approval owing to the unpopularity of the measures with which it was combined, the most striking of which was a six-year term for the legislature.

There may be a long struggle for supremacy between the "machine" and the reformers, but in that revival of interest which is being taken throughout the United States in the conduct and working of representative inst.i.tutions it can be confidently predicted that the reform of the existing methods of election will take a prominent place.

_The United Kingdom._

In the United Kingdom the Proportional Representation Society, founded in 1884, was revived in 1905, and since its revival has secured the adherence of a considerable number of members of Parliament. The Royal Commission on Electoral Systems, appointed in December 1908, was the outcome of its activity and, although this Commission did not recommend the immediate application of proportional representation to the House of Commons, its Report marks a very considerable advance in the history of the movement in this country.[9] The Commission reported that there would be much to be said in favour of proportional representation as a method for the const.i.tution of an elective Second Chamber, and intimated its approval of this method of election for munic.i.p.alities. The views taken by the Commission in respect of an elective Second Chamber and munic.i.p.alities have found expression elsewhere. The Select Committee on the Reform of the House of Lords, presided over by Lord Rosebery, recommended that the election of Lords of Parliament to represent the hereditary Peerage should be by the c.u.mulative vote or any other scheme of proportionate election,[10] and since this Report was issued all proposals for the introduction of an elected element into the House of Lords have recognized the need for an adequate representation of minorities.[11] The Munic.i.p.al Representation Bill, introduced by Lord Courtney of Penwith, was pa.s.sed by the House of Lords in 1908 after careful examination by a select Committee of that House, whilst a motion, moved by Mr. Aneurin Williams, on 30 March 1910, in the House of Commons, in favour of applying the system to munic.i.p.al elections was carried without opposition.

_The success of proportional representation in practice._

The movement in favour of more accurate methods of election is becoming world-wide in its scope, and the brief summary[12] already given of the progress made in recent years furnishes in itself abundant proof of the practicability of proportional representation. In every country in which the new methods have been introduced fears were expressed that it would be impossible for the average elector to fulfil the new duties required of him, and that returning officers would collapse under the weight of their new responsibilities. The same apprehension still exists in England, and it may therefore be desirable to refer in greater detail to the experience of those countries in which the new methods have been put to the test of popular elections. Nowhere do we find that the new systems of voting have presented any serious difficulty to the electors, and although the task imposed upon the returning officers has been in some cases unnecessarily severe, yet they have not only carried out their new duties with credit, but have made the introduction of the new system a brilliant success. After the first elections in Geneva, in November 1892, the journal _Le Genevois_, which had fought desperately against the introduction of the reform, stated that the counting of the votes had been quickly and correctly carried out. "We readily acknowledge," it added, "that in this matter we were greatly deceived."

"From the point of view of practicability," wrote the _Journal de Geneve_, "the new system has been a brilliant success." _La Suisse_ declared that the outstanding triumph of the day was proportional voting. The first elections in the canton of Bale-town were equally successful. "The elections," said the late Professor Hagenbach-Bischoff, "took place on 26 June 1905; the polling places were open till 2 P.M., the counting was finished at 7 P.M., so that the newspapers were able to publish the results the same evening. Everything went off well, and the journals have acknowledged the great success of proportional representation."

Six General Elections have taken place in Belgium since the law of 1899, and now no one in the country speaks of the impracticability of proportional representation. Count Goblet d'Alviella states that "all the objections that were brought against the system before its introduction have been set at naught. The proportional method instead of complicating, as was foretold, both the voting and the counting, has worked with greater ease than the old one. The electors understood at once what they were to do, and the counters made fewer mistakes than before." Wurtemberg furnishes another instance of the ease with which the new system can be introduced. _Der Beobachter_, a leading journal of Stuttgart, stated that: "The new electoral system, which only a short time ago was unknown to the electors, worked without a hitch in the whole country, just as it worked a few weeks ago in Stuttgart. The first feeling is one of surprise. The number of votes was enormous; the candidates were numerous, the ballot papers from the different districts were in various forms, and yet the whole machine, from the district officials to the employees of the Government office, who collected the results, worked with prompt.i.tude and ease. The next feeling is one of pleasure at the complete success of this first experiment in proportional representation on a large scale in the German Empire."

The success of the first elections in Finland, in which more than half the voters exercised the franchise for the first time, was equally complete. According to the account of a Finnish journalist[13]: "The first election under the new system took place on 15 and 16 March 1907.

The total electorate amounts to some 1,300,000 people, or 47 per cent, of the whole population. Of these about 887,000, or nearly 64 per cent., polled. In the more thickly-populated electoral divisions the percentage was much higher: thus, in the Nyland division, which comprises Helsingfors, it was 74.2 per cent.; in several polling districts as many as 95 and even 98 per cent, came to the polling station. The often-used argument against proportional representation, that the system is too involved to be understood by the average voter, was in Finland completely refuted. The number of spoilt ballot papers in the whole country probably is less than 1 per cent.; in the Nyland division, the largest of all, returning twenty-three members, the ballot paper contained ninety-five candidates, and yet only 0.59 per cent, were spoilt." Small as this number is, the official returns for the succeeding elections show a still smaller percentage. In November 1910 the number of spoilt papers throughout the country amounted to .25 per cent, of the whole. The first elections in Sweden were equally successful. There was only one spoilt paper in the elections witnessed by the author at Carlskrona in May 1910.

Nor have English-speaking peoples shown themselves less able to adapt themselves to new voting methods. An official report presented by the chief returning officer of Tasmania to the Senate of the Australian Commonwealth[14] contains convincing evidence as to the practicability of the single transferable vote for the purpose of parliamentary elections. The report deals with the election of members of the Commonwealth Senate and House of Representatives in 1901 by means of the single transferable vote. For this purpose the State of Tasmania was treated as a single const.i.tuency. The percentage of spoilt papers due to the new system of voting was 1.44 in the Senate elections and 1.80 in the election of the House of Representatives, but the returning officer adds that "this would have been much less had it not been that the old defective system previously in force in Tasmania required the actual scoring out of every rejected candidate instead of, as in most countries, the marking of a cross or sign only against those candidates who were selected. Had this better form of marking been in practice in Tasmania previous to the introduction of the Hare system of voting, it is probable that there would be very few invalid papers due to the Hare system of marking with preference numbers." Professor Jethro Brown, in describing these first elections, states that "the work of the returning officer, whilst less simple than that of the elector, demands no exceptional qualifications; he need display the industry of an average clerk--scarcely more."[15] The more recent elections in Tasmania, those of 1909, were carried out with equal ease. The percentage of spoilt ballot papers due to all causes was 2.86, and this percentage compared favourably with the number of spoilt papers in the election of 1906, in which the majority system of voting was used.[16]

The Transvaal munic.i.p.al elections also afford excellent evidence of the ease with which the new system of voting can be introduced. Most of the electors made their first acquaintance with the system during the electoral campaign. In Pretoria the number of spoilt papers due to all causes amounted to 38 out of a total of 2852, or 1.33 per cent., while the number of spoilt papers which could be attributed to the new system was only 27, or less than 1 per cent. The percentage of spoilt papers at Johannesburg was larger, but it must be remembered that the electorate in this town is perhaps as cosmopolitan as any in the world. At some of the public meetings addresses were given in English, Dutch, and Yiddish, and the task of instructing the electors in their new duties was considerably more difficult than in a more h.o.m.ogeneous const.i.tuency.

Nevertheless the number of spoilt papers due to all causes was only 367 out of a total number of 12,155, or 3 per cent., whilst the number of spoilt papers attributable to the new system was 285, or 2.35 per cent.

Moreover, the returning officer was very strict in his decisions as to the validity of papers, so that the number of spoilt papers attributable to the new system included all those in which voters had in any way departed from the letter of the instructions. The press bore striking testimony to the success of the elections. The _Transvaal Leader_ declared that "the consensus of competent opinion is that the system is a perfect success, considered as electoral machinery.... The munic.i.p.al elections have demonstrated that every section can secure that amount of representation which it can justly claim." The _Rand Daily Mail_ expressed the view that "...Both here, and in Pretoria, it may claim to have proved a success. The ten councillors elected under it here may fairly claim to be representative of every shade of public opinion....

We should like to see it extended to all munic.i.p.alities, and ultimately to parliamentary elections." The _Johannesburg Star_ stated that "The authors may fairly congratulate themselves that they have proved it practicable in working and fair in results. The business of counting the votes and allotting the preferences was sure to be a slow one at the first time of asking, but there was no hesitation and no confusion. The proceedings in the Wanderer's Hall went forward with the steady certainty of clockwork.... The whole trial was a high one in a town like this with a considerable element of illiterate voters; but taking it all through we have no hesitation in saying that the working of the new system was a conspicuous and unqualified success."

_An election by miners_.]

After such a ma.s.s of testimony as to the satisfactory working of proportional methods in parliamentary elections, it is perhaps hardly necessary to refer to the success of those model elections carried out from time to time by the Proportional Representation Society in England.[17] Yet it may be as well to recall the novel and entirely successful experiment, organized in 1885, by Mr. Albert Grey, M.P. (now Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada). "Mr. Grey," according to the account in _The Times_[18], "was returning officer, and was a.s.sisted in the count by thirty miners--a body of utterly untrained men whose hands, accustomed by daily usage to the contact of pickaxe and shovel, were new and strange to the somewhat delicate task of fingering and separating flimsy ballot papers. They had received no instructions before they were a.s.sembled in the room as to the duties they would be required to transact, and the expedition, good-humour, and correctness with which they got through the several stages of the count justly earned for them the admiration of those who had come from a distance, as well as the compliment which Mr. Grey deservedly paid them at the conclusion of the day's proceedings." On this occasion some 6645 papers were counted, the number of spoilt votes being 44, considerably less than 1 per cent. The election is of interest as the members of Northumberland Miners'

a.s.sociation have ever since that date used the transferable vote in the election of their agents.

To demonstrate the practicability of proportional representation does not, however, dispose of all of the objections which have been urged against the system, but before dealing with these objections it will perhaps be useful to outline those schemes which have emerged so successfully from the test of popular elections. These methods, although they vary in detail, range themselves under two heads--the single transferable vote and the system of lists. The first of these systems--the single transferable vote--bases representation upon electors who may, if they so desire, group themselves into parties, whereas the list systems base representation upon parties as such. And as the single transferable vote, in basing representation upon electors follows English traditions, we will begin with the consideration of this system.

[Footnote 1: The story of the introduction of proportional representation into the Canton of Ticino is told in full by Professor Galland in _La Democratie Tessinoise et la Representation Proportionnelle_ (Gren.o.ble, 1909).]

[Footnote 2: The application was extended in 1892, 1895, and 1898 to the election of the Executive Council, of jurors and of Communal Councils.

In 1904, however, when the Liberals were in a majority, a change was made in the election of the Executive Council. The proportional system, which had given them only three seats out of five, was replaced (for the election of Executive Councils) by the limited vote. Under the new system, which is less favourable to the minority, the Liberals obtained four out of five seats.]

[Footnote 3: Goblet d'Alviella, _La Representation Proportionnelle en Belgique_, p. 92.]

[Footnote 4: No. 2376, _Chambre des Deputes, Huitieme Legislature_, 1905.]

[Footnote 5: No. 883, _Chambre des Deputes, Neuvieme Legislature_, 1907.

(See App. X.)]

[Footnote 6: _The Finnish Reform Bill of_ 1906. The new method of voting is described in Appendix IV.]

[Footnote 7: The Russian Duma has since pa.s.sed a law (1910) by which the powers the Finnish Diet have been considerably curtailed.]

[Footnote 8: The Swedish system is described in Appendix III.]

[Footnote 9: Report of Royal Commission on Electoral Systems, 1910 (Cd.

5163).]

[Footnote 10: House of Lords Report, 1908 (234), par. 18.]

[Footnote 11: In the article, "Two Chambers or One," in _The Quarterly Review,_ July 1910, the writer recommends that elected members, if introduced into the House of Lords, should be chosen in large const.i.tuencies by a system of proportional representation. Professor Ramsay Muir in _Peers and Bureaucrats_ advocates the formation of a new Upper House, wholly elected under a proportional system.]

[Footnote 12: This summary is necessarily incomplete; the list of countries is continually lengthening. Uruguay has adopted a form of minority representation (1910); Lisbon and Oporto, under the electoral scheme of the new Portuguese government, will choose representatives by a proportional system (1911); a new movement, under the leadership of Prince Teano, has arisen in Italy.]

[Footnote 13: _The Daily Chronicle_ 1 June 1907.]

[Footnote 14: Reprinted in Report on Munic.i.p.al Representation Bill, House of Lords, 1907 (132), p. 125.]

[Footnote 15: _The New Democracy_, p. 47.]

[Footnote 16: The percentage in the Federal Senate election of 1906 was 4.48; in the election of the House of Representatives, 3.94. A full report on the General Election of 30 April 1909 has been published by the Tasmanian Government--Tasmania, 1909, No. 34.]

[Footnote 17: See Chapter VII.]

[Footnote 18: _The Times_, 26 January 1885.]

CHAPTER VII

THE SINGLE TRANSFERABLE VOTE

"The law regulating the form of voting may be thus expressed. Every vote shall be given on a doc.u.ment setting forth the name of the candidate for whom it is given; and if the vote be intended, in the events provided for by this Act, to be transferred to any other candidate, or candidates, then the names of such other candidate, or candidates, must be added in numerical order."--Thomas Hare, _The Election of Representatives_ (Fourth edition, 1873)

The single transferable vote was the distinguishing characteristic of the scheme of electoral reform proposed by Hare in 1857, but it was a.s.sociated with the proposal to treat the whole kingdom as a single const.i.tuency. The later advocates of this new method of voting have recommended its application to const.i.tuencies of more moderate size, such as counties and large towns, and in this form the system has found a more ready acceptance and has been used with success in parliamentary elections.

_Its present application_.]

The first application of the single transferable vote took place in Denmark[1] in 1855, and it is still being used under the Const.i.tution of 1867 in the election of members of the Danish Upper House. It is also used, as provided by the South Africa Act of 1909, in the elections of the Senate of the United Parliament and in the election of the Executive Committees of the Provincial Councils. In each of these cases the electorates are small, and the electors possess special qualifications.

The Danish Upper House is elected in two stages, the transferable vote being used only in the final stage in which electors of the second degree alone take part. In South Africa the members of the first Senate were elected by members of the local parliaments of the several Colonies,[2] and the Executive Committees of the Provincial Councils by members of the Councils. The system has, however, been subjected to the test of popular parliamentary elections in Tasmania and of munic.i.p.al elections in Pretoria and Johannesburg.

Ever since the publication of Hare's scheme, proposals for proportional representation have been a.s.sociated in English-speaking countries with the idea of a transferable vote. Hare's proposals were warmly endorsed by John Stuart Mill first in _Representative Government_, and again in a memorable speech delivered in the House of Commons on 30 May 1867, when he moved an amendment to the Electoral Reform Bill.[3] Mill's amendment was defeated, but he retained to the full his faith in the great value and need of the improved method of voting, as the following pa.s.sage from his _Autobiography_ shows: "This great discovery," said he, "for it is no less, in the political art, inspired me, as I believe it has inspired all thoughtful persons who have adopted it, with new and more sanguine hopes respecting the prospects of human Society, by freeing the form of political inst.i.tutions towards which the whole civilized world is manifestly and irresistibly tending from the chief part of what seemed to qualify and render doubtful its ultimate benefits. ... I can understand that persons, otherwise intelligent, should, for want of sufficient examination, be repelled from Mr. Hare's plan by what they think the complex nature of its machinery. But any one who does not feel the want which the scheme is intended to supply; any one who throws it over as a mere theoretical subtlety or crochet, tending to no valuable purpose and unworthy of the attention of practical men, may be p.r.o.nounced an incompetent statesman, unequal to the politics of the future."[4]

_An English movement_.]

The English advocates of proportional representation who have succeeded Mill have equally favoured the single transferable vote. This system was embodied in the Bill introduced into the House of Commons in 1872 by Mr.

Walter Morrison, Mr. Auberon Herbert, Mr. Henry Fawcett, and Mr. Thomas Hughes; it was advocated in the important debates which took place in the House of Commons in 1878 and 1879; and the Proportional Representation Society, founded in 1884 in view of the Electoral Reform Bill of that year, created, under the leadership of Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Leonard Courtney, a strong movement in its favour. Owing to the agreement between the leaders of the Liberal and Conservative parties in favour of single-member const.i.tuencies this movement had no immediate result. Since its revival in 1905 the Proportional Representation Society has continued to press the claims of the single transferable vote, and with some success. The practicability of the system was admitted by the Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed to examine the Munic.i.p.al Representation Bill introduced into that House by Lord Courtney in 1907; the model elections organized by the Society in 1906, 1908, and 1910,[5] have to some extent familiarized the British public with its details; it found, as already mentioned, a place in the South African Const.i.tution of 1909, whilst the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems reported in 1910 that "of schemes for producing proportional representation we think that the transferable vote would have the best chance of ultimate acceptance."