374 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



of population admittedly excessive) is justified as being an 

 essential condition of the Treaty of Union, there is no serious 

 difficulty in dealing with this matter on a scientific, and there- 

 fore permanent, basis. To effect a satisfactory solution, the 

 boundaries of many existing constituencies must be rectified ; 

 a few constituencies must be merged in others ; a certain 

 number of new Parliamentary divisions must be created ; and 

 all this must be done in such a way as to secure numerically 

 equal voting areas. As the population of these areas will 

 vary in the course of time, it will be necessary to provide 

 machinery for an automatic readjustment of boundaries, say 

 once in ten years, in accordance with the results of each 

 successive census. This system is already in successful opera- 

 tion in some of our self-governing Dominions, and its adoption 

 here would not, therefore, be in the nature of an experiment. 

 The actual work of redistribution should, of course, be entrusted 

 to a judicial commission, free from any suspicion of political 

 or party influence. 



(d) " Methods of election " is a somewhat vague expression 

 which it is not necessary, at the moment, to follow in all its 

 ramifications. Under this heading arise, of course, the propo- 

 sals of the Proportional Representation Society. Irrespective 

 of the attitude of the Speaker's Conference on this debat- 

 able matter, it may be remarked that this particular method 

 of election has much to recommend it, securing, as it does, that 

 " minority representation " which is essential in any Assembly 

 which claims to reflect the balance of parties in the con- 

 stituencies. The backbone of the resistance to this reform is 

 probably to be found in the conviction of party managers that 

 its adoption would tend to a splitting up of existing parties, 

 and to the formation of groups on the Continental model in 

 the House of Commons. There is, of course, room for differ- 

 ence of opinion as to whether this modification, or subversion, 

 of our two-party system is desirable. It may, however, be 

 considered doubtful whether the adoption of Proportional 

 Representation, as a method of election, would do more, in this 

 direction, than accelerate a process which is already going on. 

 Proportional Representation would, moreover, in certain cir- 

 cumstances, weaken the authority of Governments by making 

 impossible such inflated majorities (out of all proportion to 

 the balance of parties in the country) as are, from time to 



