1890-91.] NOTE ON ELECTORAL REPRESENTATION. 321 



tutional changes which we may generally desire ; no reason can be 

 adduced why we should rigidly adhere to usages of the past, if we have 

 been made to feel that they are productive of evil. 



Feeling clear on these points, two courses are open. First, we may 

 adopt the laisser-aller policy, and allow matters to go on as now, with 

 the prospect, nay, the certainty, that the evils we experience will become 

 greater, and even more confirmed. Second, we may make an honest 

 attempt to rectify Parliament, and obtain a government based on the true 

 principles of popular representation. 



If we are satisfied that some change in our political methods will be 

 advantageous to us, we are not only free to make the amendment, but 

 it is a duty which we owe to ourselves and to our posterity, to endeavour 

 as much as we are able, to perfect the organization of representative 

 government, so that in this Dominion it may attain the fullest develop- 

 ment and most symmetrical form. 



Following the second course, the problem which challenges our 

 attention is : to devise a scheme of electoral representation, by which the 

 whole electorate may be equally recognized in one deliberative bodv, and 

 every elector may have an equitable share through Parliament in the 

 general administration of public affairs. It is, in short, to perfect our 

 constitutional system so that every interest within the Dominion shall 

 be fairly represented in its government. 



This problem may be difficult of solution, but considering its vast 

 importance it ought not, in this inventive and constructive age, to be 

 insoluble. What is a party but a portion of the people organized for 

 political purposes ? If it be practicable to organize two political parties 

 in the community, it should be quite possible to form one organization, the 

 outcome of that one organization to be the Parliament we are in search 

 of. We are led to think that political organizations are costly affairs. 

 In the one case, each of the two parties obtains funds from private 

 sources or secretly and improperly from public sources. In the other 

 case the expenditure on a single organization would be purely in the 

 ■public interests, it could be made openly under the highest authority 

 and be a proper direct charge on the public exchequer. 



The writer has elsewhere given expression to his views on this subject, 

 and has submitted certain principles by means of which Parliament might 

 be constituted so as to represent truly the whole electorate. While he 

 does not attempt to furnish a scheme, coniplete in all its details, the 

 maturing of which would indeed require much time, much consultation 



