ELECTORAL REFORAr PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 4O3 



As to the country, its rate of progress would be increased, 

 the needs and the wishes of its inhabitants would find such 

 expression as they never had before, as an efficient instrument 

 for securing this would be in their hands. 



To recapitulate : The Union of South Africa, through ignor- 

 ance of the great advantages the transferable vote confers, lost 

 the inestimable boon of true representation. The system of 

 single-member constituencies leaves large sections of the voters 

 unrepresented, and a large majority of the votes unused ; it 

 utterly fails to secure representation, and under it a minority of 

 the voters sometimes secures a majority of elected members; 

 and in the British House of Commons in only one election in 

 twenty-five years was there an approximation to representation. 

 These drawbacks are impossible with the use of the transferable 

 vote, which, through sectional representations, makes use of 

 every vote it is possible to use in electing the members, and thus 

 secures true representation. This system provides the question 

 of additional representation with easy and satisfactory settle- 

 ment ; the troublesome question of redistribution is avoided ; one 

 vote one value can be secured ; and the election is ensured of the 

 very best public men whose local influence secures the support of 

 those who know them best. 



I have dwelt, the lecturer said in conclusion, on the enor- 

 mous change this system produces in the position of the voter, 

 the candidate, and the member, and of the good it would do in 

 advancing the practical interests of the country. I remind you 

 of your partnership with the Great Chartered Company of 

 British South Africa, of the identity of your aims and interests, 

 of the benevolent bureaucracy under which you live, and of the 

 certainty of your getting this boon of true representation, if you 

 can only spread the knowledge of its benefits far and wide. 



As the best means of doing this I urge your forming at once 

 a local branch of the Proportional Representation Society. 

 \Mth you lies the great responsibility of preventing a repetition 

 in Rhodesia of the catastrophe the Union of South Africa 

 suffered at Bloemfontein. 



THE GYROSCOPE. 



By W. H. LoGEMAN, M.A. 



(Evciiiiuj discourse delivered in the Library Hall, Biilazcayo. on 

 Thursday. 6th July, iqi i : illustrated by models and experi- 

 ments.) 



The lecturer explained the working of Brennan's mono-rai' 

 railway, and the application of the gyroscope to the steadying o*" 

 ships. 



