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in tbeii' own divisions and in other divisions. So long as party 

 lines are so distinct as they have been for many years in this 

 country, the present system, in my opinion, is satisfactory. 



Briefly then I object to Proportional Eepresentation : Because 

 it embodies the plurality member system. Because it includes 

 the minority principle in an objeciiouable form. Because it 

 makes less effective the representative system, by removing the 

 member fi-om immediate responsibility to his constituents. 

 Because there is no evidence whatever that the people desire it, 

 and this is pre-eminently a question for the people. Because it 

 is so complicated that the people could not understand it, and it 

 would, in my opinion, lead to great confusion and possible error, 

 if not something worse in the counting of votes. And, lastly, 

 because it is utterly foreign to our manner of exercising the 

 franchise during the last half century, and no change so great 

 should be made without overwhelming necessity being shown, 

 and the strongest desire on the part of the people expressed. 



Mr. G. B. Eawcliffe, who did not pledge himself to the par- 

 ticular system described by Mr. Moore, but argued on the lines 

 of Mr. Hare's system, as advocated by John Stuart Mill and 

 others, said, that Proportional Representation did not mean the 

 representation of minorities as such, but that it was a system in- 

 vented to enable minorities scattered throughout the country to 

 work together so as to secure their fair share of representation, 

 neither more nor less. By this means every shade of social and 

 political opinion would obtain its true reflection in the House of 

 Commons. For instance, at the General election of 1880, there 

 were 3,077,489 electors in the United Kingdom; there were then 

 652 members of the House of Commons ; dividing the number 

 of electors by the number of members, you have 4720 electors to 

 each member. 



Proportional Representation simply meant that it should be 

 necessary for each candidate to obtain that number of votes, (not 

 from any particular town, but from the whole kingdom) before 

 he could' be considered elected. Those candidates who failed to 

 obtain that number of votes represented the minoriUj of the 

 people, and were not entitled to sit. Those who did obtain the 

 requisite number, represented the majority, and were entitled to 

 sit, and to rule the minority. 



The present system, improperly called the "majority system," 

 often defeated its own ends. In the General Election of 1874, 

 there were some 244,000 more Liberal votes recorded in the 

 United Kingdom than Conservative votes, and yet a Conservative 

 government was sent to power, with a large majority of Con- 

 servative members. The majority of the electors were of one 

 political colour, and the majority of the elected another. The 

 majority elected the minority, and the minority elected the 



