178 THE TRANSFERABLE VOTE IN ELECTIONS. 



mitted to the voters for their vote. No carriages were provided 

 in this case, and the total votes given on any item did not exceed 

 2,110; representing about half that number of voters, less than 8 

 per cent, of those on the roll, though one item was ;(;366,ooo for 

 improvement of streets. It was hoped that the return to the ward 

 system last year would excite interest. It seems to have failed 

 to do so, for only 39 per cent, of the voters on the roll voted ; and 

 only three wards were contested this year at its second trial. 



27. Under the system of sectional representation it would 

 be impossible for any candidate to canvass the whole city. It is 

 to his own ward and his own locality he could most profitably 

 devote his attention, and all the advantages of the ward system 

 without some of its most striking disadvantages, might be retained. 

 Nomination, canvassing, the present system of election, can all 

 continue. If some local need is strongly felt the whole ward can 

 put forward, and secure by its votes, the election of their best local 

 man ; all lie needs is the support of a quota. 



28. Surely the knowledge that 89 per cent, or more of the 

 votes given are effective in place of 42 per cent, as now, the know- 

 ledge that placing the best candidate in order of his preference 

 on his voting paper will secure the election of that one of them who 

 most needs his vote, and the opportunity of choosing any one of 

 all the candidates who stand for election, will in time, tend to 

 diminish the apathy and increase the interest of the voters, who 

 now have merely an alternative offered to them of voting for one 

 of two local ward candidates, neither of whom it may be they 

 would have chosen as representing their views or wishes. 



29. The unwillingness of candidates to come forward is 

 partly due to the expense, the work and the worry of personally 

 canvassing for votes ; to the thankless want of appreciation on the 

 part of the voters for the services their members give them ; to the 

 unpleasantness of a contest with perhaps an inferior candidate 

 with local influence, who wants, for his own sake, to secure election, 

 who may have secured the support of the "boss" of the ward 

 where there is one. 



30. We know from recent revelations that in the election of 

 members for Boards of Guardians in London, there is danger of 

 the representation there falling into disrepute. We are free from 

 this evil here, as we are free from the predominance of the party 

 element in the election of our members of council. We most 

 certainly need greater interest in both the election and the doings 

 of our Town Councillors. The day is perhaps not far distaijt when 

 we, in the Cape Peninsula, shall see most at any rate of our half- 

 dozen outlying suburban Municipalities united ; and before long, 

 it may be, we shall have the privilege, which the Municipalities in 

 the Transvaal enjoy, of applying for a reform in Municipal elec- 

 tions, that realises what John Stuart Mill advocated more than 

 fifty years ago, and that promises to do something towards 

 securing those essentials for true representation, to which I called 

 attention at the beginning of this paper. (Section 2.) 



