Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election Part 21

Both these requirements are supplied by a system of proportional representation.

[Footnote 1: "Doubts of Proportional Representation," _The Albany Review,_ November 1907.]

[Footnote 2: 12 September 1908.]

[Footnote 3: T. R. and H. P. C. Ashworth, _Proportional Representation applied to Party Government_, 1901, p. 195.]

[Footnote 4: _Report of Royal Commission on Electoral Systems_ (Cd.

5163) par. 133.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., par. 126.]

[Footnote 6: Ibid., par. 134.]

[Footnote 7: Ibid., par. 88.]

[Footnote 8: Burke, _Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents_.]

[Footnote 9: "The Regeneration of Parliaments," _Contemporary Review_, June 1905.]

[Footnote 10: The Baden Socialists voted for the estimates in the Baden Diet, and shortly after at the German Socialist Congress, Magdeburg, 21 September 1910, a motion was carried excluding from the party _ipso facto_ any member who in future voted for the estimates. The South German Socialists left the Congress House.--_Times_, 23 September 1910.]

[Footnote 11: T.R. and H.P.C. Ashworth, _Proportional Representation Applied to Party Government: A New Electoral System_, 1901, p. 210.]

[Footnote 12: Address to members of the Russian Duma, House of Commons, 22 June 1909.]

[Footnote 13: _The Times_, 13 June 1910.]

[Footnote 14: M. Ostrogorski, _Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties_. (Translation by F. Clarke, M.A.), vol. ii. p. 713.]

[Footnote 15: The Australian _Review of Reviews_, January 1906.]

[Footnote 16: _The Times_, 16 March 1909.]

[Footnote 17: _The Times_, 16 June 1909.]

[Footnote 18: Preface to _Parliamentary Procedure of the House of Commons_, by Josef Redlich, p. xvii.]

[Footnote 19: _Minutes of Evidence of the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems_ (Cd. 5152), Q. 1492.]

[Footnote 20: Glasgow, 22 October 1910.]

CHAPTER XI

OBJECTIONS TO PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

"The party agents and political men opposed to the very last the introduction of a system of proportional representation."--COUNT GOBLET D'ALVIELLA

_The question of practicality._

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. Nor are these doubts entirely removed by the conclusion arrived at by the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems--that the three systems of proportional representation examined by the Commission are quite feasible. The sceptics need to be convinced that the intelligence of the ordinary English elector and the capacity of the English returning officer are equal to the requirements of the new system; its practicability has in fact to be demonstrated afresh. It is granted that the more complete adaptation of the machinery of elections to the true representation of the electors must involve some departure from the simplicity of present methods, and in order to gauge the value of the objection that the change proposed is so great as to render its introduction impracticable, it will be well to consider once more the character of the tasks which the new system will throw upon the elector and the returning officer.

_The elector's task._ In criticizing the mechanism of the single transferable vote a Member of Parliament, at a public meeting in his const.i.tuency, declared that the act of voting ought to be made so simple as to be intelligible to a child of the second standard in a public elementary school. The reply might very well be made that such children are capable of indicating a choice amongst those things in which they are interested. But this a.s.sertion raises the question whether the method of voting for the purpose of selecting the members of an a.s.sembly, 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? A secretary of the Liberal Unionist a.s.sociation has declared that in some const.i.tuencies hundreds of electors are so ignorant as not to know the name of the Prime Minister, and has even advanced this fact in order to show that it is unnecessary to trouble about the true representation of the electors.

Even were this statement not exaggerated it would but furnish an additional argument in favour of proportional representation. The votes of such ignorant electors, not being given for political reasons, are far too easily bought by that indirect corruption which takes the form of subscriptions, charitable donations, gifts of coals and of blankets; and yet, with the present system, these votes may decide the result of an election and completely nullify the votes of intelligent citizens.

With the single transferable vote all that an elector is asked to do is to number candidates in the order of his preference. He need do no more than place the figure 1 against the name of his first choice. It is desirable that, he should proceed further, but abundant a.s.sistance, if he needs it, will be forthcoming from the party organizations and the press. But is there any considerable section of the English electorate that cannot perform this new duty? When being examined before the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Munic.i.p.al 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. That is my personal experience gained after some years of work." Apart from this expression of opinion, we have this convincing testimony to the capacity of working men electors that they have been among the first to put improved electoral methods into practice. The Northumberland miners and Canadian Trades Unions are familiar with the use of the single transferable vote in the election of their officers; the Labour Party in Victoria has made use of preferential voting in the selection of its parliamentary candidates.

Moreover, the daily work of artizans enables them readily and quickly to grasp the fundamental idea of proportional representation--the representation of parties in _proportion_ to their strength--and the discussions on this question in Labour organizations have been at least as keen as, if not keener than, those in other political a.s.sociations.

The doubts entertained as to the capacity of the electorate are not shared by those who have been officially responsible for the conduct of elections. Mr. S. R. Ginn, Clerk of the Peace for Cambridgeshire, in giving evidence before the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems, declared that "after one or two elections proportional representation ought to work as easily as the ballot. When the county electors got the extended franchise we had some difficulty with the ballot, but now it is simple, and proportional representation would be much the same."

Speaking of the elaborate precautions taken in the organization of elections he expressed the opinion that the voters were more to be trusted than our machinery trusts them. It is difficult in the face of such evidence to understand on what grounds the English electors should be regarded as so greatly inferior to the electors of other countries that they cannot be trusted to make proper use of an improved electoral method. The charge of incapacity can only apply to the least intelligent section of the electorate, and it is astonishing that those who are so anxious to preserve the electoral privileges of the unintelligent voters should be supremely indifferent to the representation of the abler sections of the electorate. At present at every election the votes of thousands of intelligent citizens count for nothing. The electors who voted for Conservative candidates in Wales at the General Election in 1906 might have saved themselves the trouble. Their voting papers, although not spoiled in the technical sense, had no value. Proportional representation would have given a value to all these votes, and even if its introduction should result in an increase in the number of spoiled papers, this would be as nothing compared with the number of votes to which, for the first time, a value would be given. The Australian advocates of proportional representation aptly describe the reform as "effective voting." The elector knows that his vote will count, and thus every inducement is offered to him to take part in the choice of a representative. The vote becomes a more valuable possession to the elector under proportional representation than under the single-member system.

_The returning officer's task._

With regard to the duties of returning officers, which in England fall upon the sheriffs of counties and the mayors of boroughs, it should be remembered that in the performance of these duties they are invariably a.s.sisted by an expert staff, and in judging of the difficulties which would attend the introduction of a new system, the fact that this expert staff would be available for the purpose of carrying out the details of an election must be taken into consideration. There would probably be no more difficulty in the introduction of a system of proportional representation than was experienced in introducing the greater change a.s.sociated with the Ballot Act. On that occasion instructions as to their new duties were issued to returning officers, and similar instructions would no doubt be issued as to the practical organization of elections under a system of proportional representation. In Belgium a department of the Ministry of the Interior is set apart for the administration of electoral affairs. Complete instructions are issued from this department to the returning officers throughout the country, and the supervision which the department exercises over the conduct of elections doubtless contributes to the facility with which returning officers have carried out their duties under the proportional system.

The fears expressed lest returning officers should not be equal to the duties which would fall upon them under the system of the single transferable vote are not shared by the returning officers themselves.

Mr. H. R. Poole, Under Sheriff for Somerset, who has had thirty years'

experience in the conduct of elections, stated, in evidence before the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems, that were Somersetshire treated as a single const.i.tuency under the system of the single transferable vote he would be able to make the necessary arrangements for the counting of the votes with a staff of the same cla.s.s of men as had a.s.sisted him hitherto. Speaking on behalf of the Under Sheriffs'

a.s.sociation, he added that "they saw no difficulty in carrying out any new electoral law which might be pa.s.sed, and that they would always be glad to give their a.s.sistance and work as loyally as they could in support of anything which might be done." The officials of urban const.i.tuencies are not less competent. Perhaps the largest urban const.i.tuency which would be formed under a system of proportional representation would be that of Glasgow, and Mr. Alexander Walker, the a.s.sessor of that city, who for twenty-four years was intimately a.s.sociated with the organization of elections, has, after a careful examination of the details of the single transferable vote, stated that there are no practical difficulties in the way of applying the system to a const.i.tuency of the size of Glasgow.

The doubts as to the capacity of returning officers spring from an inadequate acquaintance with the difficulties which they already overcome in the conduct of elections. The duties which would devolve upon these officers under the single transferable vote system are not greater than have been undertaken and are undertaken in Great Britain to-day in connexion with the use of the c.u.mulative vote. The Scottish School Boards are still elected under the latter system, and the following particulars of the elections in Glasgow on 2 April 1909, ill.u.s.trate the admirable manner in which returning officers in this country, as elsewhere, carry out the tasks a.s.signed to them. The whole city was polled as one const.i.tuency; fifteen members were to be elected, and each elector had fifteen votes, which he could distribute or c.u.mulate as he pleased upon any of the twenty-one candidates nominated.

There were on the roll 157,194 electors, of whom 40,778 took part in the election. The returning officer, in this case the Treasurer of the Glasgow School Board, had therefore to deal with over 600,000 votes, but he had to make provision for counting a much larger number of votes. Yet he had no difficulty in accomplishing successfully and expeditiously this gigantic task. He enlisted the services of over 250 clerks, and the whole process of extracting the details of the ballot papers was completed in the course of about five hours. Had the single transferable vote been employed the number of votes to be dealt with would have been 40,778 only, and although the papers would have had to be counted more than once, the task would not have been so large as that entailed by the c.u.mulative vote, nor would it have been necessary to have engaged so large a staff. It is sometimes forgotten that returning officers take a pride in the perfecting of their arrangements for counting the votes. In introducing new methods into the counting of votes in the Glasgow Munic.i.p.al elections, Mr. Walker prepared and issued very complete instructions to his staff, and took pains to see that the staff were fully prepared for its work, and there is not the least doubt that the town clerks and under-sheriffs would meet any changes in electoral methods with the determination to carry out their part of the work as successfully as possible. The first elections in Tasmania and the Transvaal with the single transferable vote proceeded with perfect smoothness, and this was due to the excellent preparations made by the returning officers.

_Time required for counting votes._

One of the minor objections urged against proportional representation is that a considerable time must elapse between the close of the poll and the declaration of the result. It will not be possible to announce the figures on the day of the election. It is doubtless desirable that the result of an election should be ascertained without unnecessary delay, but it is far better to wait a day in order to obtain a true result than to adhere to an electoral system which gives a false result, and on which a government may have to be based for a period of five years. With most proportional systems only one day's delay occurs. The Under Sheriff of Somerset has estimated that it might take him two days before he could complete the return for that county, as it would probably take half the first day to verify the contents of the ballot boxes. On this point the verdict of the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems is as follows: "On the whole it is probably safe to say that in a const.i.tuency where 60,000 or 70,000 votes are cast, such as would have to be contemplated in this country, the results should be declared with efficient arrangements in the course of the second day after the poll.

Where the const.i.tuency was compact, _e.g.,_ in the case of a large town like Birmingham or Manchester, the count of first votes could be finished on the night of the election, and the remaining operations of elimination and transfer completed in a long day's work on the following day; but a longer time would have to be allowed in the case of extensive rural districts."[1] It has also been alleged that there may be a greater number of pet.i.tions for the recounting of votes under the transferable vote system. But neither Tasmanian nor South African experience gives any ground for this statement, and as the Tasmanian Agent-General has pointed out, there is as much difference between the counting of votes under the improved system and under the existing rough and ready method as there is between book-keeping by single and book-keeping by double entry; the sorting of the votes is carefully checked at each operation, and all errors in the counting of votes must be rectified before any new stage in the process can be entered upon.

_ Fads and sectional interests._

The objection that a proportional system is too complex for English electors and returning officers thus completely breaks down. But it remains to consider whether the other objections which have been raised against proportional representation are of sufficient weight as to render its introduction undesirable. It is repeatedly a.s.serted that proportional representation will encourage the undue representation of faddists and of sectional interests. For example, Professor Edward Jenks alleges that, "If we had such a vast const.i.tuency as Manchester, or Liverpool, under the proportional system we should certainly have a member for teetotalism, a member for vegetarianism and the like, and each of these, in all probability, would be instructed rigidly to oppose everything inconsistent with the special ideal of its const.i.tuents."[2]

Now under a system of proportional representation a candidate in any const.i.tuency, 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 const.i.tuencies 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 character of the objection shows that the true working of a system of proportional representation is completely misunderstood, for a proportional system reduces fads and sectional interests to their proper proportions; it is the existing system of single-member const.i.tuencies which confers excessive power upon insignificant sections of the whole. Were there 10,000 electors in Manchester who, as suggested, would regard vegetarianism as of greater importance than any other political question, and were these electors scattered throughout the city, then there would be an average of more than 1500 such electors in each of the existing divisions. A body of 1500 voters in a division of Manchester prepared to place their particular fad above all other political questions have now the power of determining the result of the election in that division; the 10,000 electors similarly minded would have the power of extracting a pledge in support of their proposals, and probably an effective pledge from the successful candidate in each division.

Under a system of proportional representation they might possibly secure a few seats, but under the present system they can affect the election in every const.i.tuency. It is well known that a large number of members of Parliament pledge themselves at election time to the support of movements with which they are not fully in accord. Probably their seat depended upon the answer which they gave to the leaders of some small body of electors holding the balance in the const.i.tuency.

Mr. Henry Vivian, M.P., thus refers to the pressure which small groups of voters bring to bear upon parliamentary candidates: "One serious evil which he hoped might be abolished by a change of system was the ragging of const.i.tuencies by a comparatively small number of busybodies interested in some particular fad. A large number of members of Parliament really had to bend to some two or three hundred electors, although there might be 20,000 in the whole const.i.tuency. He had the misfortune to be elected by only a gross. It was strictly true that in many cases a candidate was compelled to consent to support something that he felt strongly against, merely because a certain percentage of the electors insisted upon it. He was not suggesting that proportional representation would entirely get rid of this evil, but he was satisfied that proportional representation rested on a larger basis--that they would have larger const.i.tuencies and a number of men from whom the elector might make selection; and therefore there would be a possibility of their lessening, if not altogether getting rid of, this most intolerable evil. He was not at all sure that he would not at times rather be out of political life than in it; it became so threatening that he absolutely refused to reply to the letters at all, or to be dictated to, in the way that these people attempted to do. He would venture to say that with a system of proportional representation they would be able to get rid of some at least, if not of most, of the objectionable features of the present system."[3] The same feature of our electoral system has been condemned in the strongest terms by Mr.

Balfour. "Everybody," said he, "who has watched the actual course of a contested election in a const.i.tuency where parties were fairly evenly balanced, knows perfectly well the monstrous power which is given to a very small minority to exact a pledge from the candidate, not that he should support this or that great policy, but that he should help their small and particular interest. 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 const.i.tuencies; we ignore the great ma.s.s who under our existing system find no representation at all comparable either to their numerical strength or to their public spirit, or to any other quality which makes them useful, able and independent citizens."[4]

The organizations of different branches of the Civil Service have, in furtherance of their interests, sought to bring pressure to bear upon members of Parliament, and in consequence of this action it has been suggested that civil servants should be disfranchised. In other words, it is proposed to meet an evil encouraged by defective electoral methods by inflicting a gross injustice upon a large body of citizens, the majority of whom, like other citizens, consider political problems purely from the point of view of national advantage. The true remedy for the unfair pressure of small sections must be sought in such a change in the method of election as will allow the country to appraise them at their true value. Direct representation, by means of which sectional interests can, if necessary, be defended or advanced within the House of Commons, is far less injurious to the State than a system which allows such interests to bring unfair pressure to bear upon a considerable number of members of Parliament, or to enforce their demands upon the nation by linking themselves to a national party. There is, however, but little danger of any large number of members being returned in support of single interests only. The results under systems of proportional representation show that the members elected are returned upon political grounds, and when any question has attained such importance as to command the support of 10,000 votes in any const.i.tuency, doubtless that question has become ripe for discussion in Parliament, and can no longer fairly be described as a fad.

It is, however, said that the direct representation of sectional interests will enable these to exercise in Parliament the same pressure that they at present exercise in the const.i.tuencies. This statement also is based upon a misconception of the changed conditions which would result from a system of proportional representation. A small body of electors can at present exercise pressure in the const.i.tuency, because the result of the election is in their hands. A small group of members could only exercise the same influence in the House of Commons if the large parties were willing to bid for their support and were, at the same time, able to enforce upon their followers the observance of any agreement entered into. The great difference in the new conditions of party discipline will here come into play. Members of a party who have been able to win elections in spite of the opposition of sectional interests, would be able to withstand pressure in Parliament. They would know that they could appeal with confidence to their supporters in the const.i.tuency to endorse their action, and, indeed, they would much more likely lose their seat if they acted contrary to the wishes of those who had returned them. Any sacrifice of principle by a party for the sake of conciliating a small faction would cause a loss of support greater than the gain. When proportional representation is established such grouping as may take place within the House of Commons will be based upon political affinities.

_The representation of localities._

Another objection which is often brought against proportional representation is that it will destroy the intimate relation which exists at present between a const.i.tuency and its representative in Parliament. Here the arguments used are not only as a rule self-destructive, but they are obviously in conflict with the suggestion that proportional representation would give undue weight to sectional interests. "Parliament," said Burke, "is a deliberate a.s.sembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where not local purpose, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed, but when you have chosen him he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament. If the local const.i.tuent should have interest, or should form a hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far as any other from any endeavour to give it effect."[5] Were the primary duty of a member for any const.i.tuency to consider the special needs of that const.i.tuency, local considerations would outweigh national interests.