OF ELECTION IN TASMANIA. 71 



bility of the scheme and its transcendent advantages. Such 

 and so numerous are these that, in my conviction, they place 

 Mr. Hare's plan among the very greatest improvements yet 

 made in the theory and practice of government." The italics 

 are mine. 



It cannot be too strongly emphasised, therefore, that the 

 chief causes which tend to produce and perpetuate unfair and 

 unequal representation are (1) inequalities in the magnitude of 

 the population of the various electoral divisions, and (2) the 

 unnecessary multiplication of artificial boundaries, restricting 

 unjustly the voting force to too narrow an area, and thereby 

 preventing the necessary and fair combination of persons who 

 desire to act together, without which their forces are wasted 

 or misdirected. 



The following illustration will help to convey more clearly 

 how any great inequalities in the size of electoral divisions, 

 conjoined with unnecessary artificial barrier sub-divisions, may 

 prevent the reasonable combination of the elemental forces, and 

 may even prevent a strong majority within a city from securing 

 representation justly proportionate to their total numbers. 



Let us conceive the City of Hobart as having 6000 voters, 

 returning six Members to Parliament. On the basis of numbers 

 it is clear, if there were no artificial barriers to reasonable com- 

 binations, that any body of persons properly organised could 

 return that proportion of representatives which would fairly 

 correspond with their numbers. 



But suppose the major party X, constituting two-thirds of 

 the City electorate, to be distributed unequally, and their voting 

 force restricted within the limit of six separate unequal electoral 

 divisions of the City, as in the following illustration, and that 

 for simplicity they are opposed by one other party Y in each 

 division, thus — 



City. Distribution. Total. 



* Local majority returning one representative. 



