176 REPRESENTATION BY THE TRANSFERABLE VOTE. 



anxious to get all other voters to vote also, and to get every one 

 of his friends on the register of voters. 



Even where zeal for his own side fails to induce him, the 

 knowledge that every vote given on the other side wall become 

 effective will drive him to the poll, will compel him to vote. 



15. The mining interest now is, and probably for many years 

 to come will be, predominant over the farming and the urban 

 or mercantile interest. The miners and their labourers are the 

 customers of the farmers ; but the day will surely, and soon, come 

 when mealies will be produced and exported in larger quantities, 

 and with them cereals, dairy produce and meat in various forms, 

 and also tobacco. 



In raising these, the farmers will year by year increase the 

 value of the land, which, in spite of their importance and neces- 

 sity, the miners are decreasing. The farmers will always be 

 scattered over the rural areas as the miners are now, but ever 

 widely and more widely. The transferable vote adapts itself to 

 all these varying states of the population, and gives each section 

 of the community its due proportional representation. To give 

 the scattered rural voters all possible facilities, we must remem- 

 ber that ballot boxes need not be large where voters are few 

 and scattered, that they are easily carried, that there is no need 

 to declare the result of the poll on the day of election. 



At polling centres it is necessary that the voter should be 

 known to the presiding officer, or his identity vouched for by 

 a known person. Where could this be done better than at every 

 Civil Commissioner's office, every post offfce, or every railway 

 station, or school or church ? And thus a vigorous attempt would 

 be made to diminish the inevitable drawbacks of the rural voter 

 when vou for the first time give him the certainty that his vote 

 will tell. 



The ballot paper keeps its own secret. A qualified presiding 

 officer, to whom most of the voters would be personally known, 

 or could be identified by a known witness, is to be found at all. 

 the suggested centres ; their work and their pay would be small- 

 but the case of the rural voter is a very impoitant one. and calls 

 for attention. 



t6. When a man has taken some trouble to vote, and has 

 carefully considered his order of preference; when he has marked 

 two or three, or it may be all seven, of the subsequently elected 

 meml)ers on his voting paper, he will take an interest in their 

 sayings and votes, and in that of the others. This will develop 

 an intelhgent interest in the politics of his country ; he wall look 

 forward with pleasant anticipations to his next chance of voting, 

 and think carefully of the order of his preference. 



Thus the transferable vote tends to secure more voters on 

 the register and at the polls, and a more intelligent interest in 

 the ])olitics of the country. 



17. Secondly, How does it affect the candidates? It is im^ 

 possible to canvass Southern Rhodesia, and freed from the 



