IV 



ADDRESS TO THE QUEEN. 

 The Chairman announced that the Society had decided to send an 

 address of congratulation to Her Majesty the Queen on the occasion of 

 the celebration of Her Majesty's Record Reign. He read the address 

 as follows :—" To Her Most Gracious Majesty— Victoria, Queen of the 

 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India : 

 May it please your Majesty,— We, your Majesty's most dutiful 

 and loyal subjects, the Fellows of the Royal Society of Tasmania, had 

 the privilege to offer our congratulations on the completion of the fiftieth 

 year of your Majesty's reigo, and we have now, on the termination of 

 its sixtieth year, the honour of again tendering our warmest and moBt 

 respectful congratulations on so memorable an event. We are thankful 

 that your Majesty's reign has been the most prolonged of all in English 

 history, feeling that under its benign influences all the moral and 

 material interests of the community have been most beneficially 

 affected, while it is gratifying to observe that the marvellous expansion 

 of the Empire during the same period clearly points to a still more 

 illustrious future. And while thus recognising the splendour of your 

 Majesty's reign, we are deeply impressed by the beneficenoe, wisdom, 

 devotion to duty, and the practical sympathy with suffering and distress 

 by which it has always been characterised, we pray that the future 

 may be as the past, and that your reign may be prolonged for the 

 good of your Majesty's faithful and devoted subjects. On behalf of 

 the Fellows (Signed) Gormakston, President." It was written on 

 vell«m and beautifully illuminated by Mr. Albert Reid, and mounted 

 on a rich dark blue scroll of Morocco leather. 



THE HARE SYSTEM. 



Professor W. Jethro-Brown, M.A., LL.D., read a paper on "Th» 

 Application of the Hare System in Tasmania." 



In a clear, well-thought-out composition, Mr. Brown dealt with the 

 merits of the Hare system, the modifications adopted in this colony, 

 and the extent to which those modifications might be regarded as im- 

 proving the system of Mr. Hare. The paper was warmly applauded, 

 and discussion postponed to a future meeting. 



A paper entitled—" Observations on the working result of the Hare 

 system of election in Tasmania, with diagrams," was read by Mr. R. 

 M. Johnston F.L.S. This paper was divided into eight sections, the 

 introductory part being devoted to describing what the chief merit of 

 the Hare system really is. Mr. Johnston showed that many people 

 unwisely restrict their attention to such minor matters as the element 

 of chance in the preference of transfers. In his opinion the foundation 

 stone of the Hare system is the constitution of its electorate. The pre- 

 ference and peculiar forms of voting of the system are no doubt im- 

 portant as valuable accessories. The main feature of the Hare electorate 

 or electoral division is that it shall be sufficiently large and untram- 

 melled, so as to permit the units of any representative party or body 

 of opinion to unite together if numerous enough to command a quota. 

 This provision also involve? the breaking down of all arbitrary and 

 unreasonable subdivisions, which, as in the ward system of cities, 

 havej hitherto prevented the otherwise wasted surplus of aggregate 

 majorities or minorities in one division from joining forces with their 

 respective parties similarly restricted in a neighbouring arbitrary sub- 

 division, and so unjustly prevented the real equality of representation, 

 that is, the representation of minorities and majorities in proportion to 

 their numbers. Then he went on to show that Hare's method of pre- 

 ference helped the elector as a sort of special Providence in preventing 

 the waste of valuable votes by automatically distributing the surplus 



