328 TRAXSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [YOl-. II. 



means employed for effecting assessment purposes, or for taking the 

 census. 



Since the views of the writer on this subject have been made public, 

 he has had the advantage of examining other schemes which at differ- 

 ent times have been proposed for improving the electoral system. It 

 is recognized by many that the present unsatisfactory system cannot 

 be viewed as permanent, and that it must in the end give place to 

 some better method. 



Among the various proposals the electoral scheme of Mr. Thomas 

 Hare, propounded in England in 1857 for the representation of minorities, 

 appears to have met with the greatest favor. The late Right Honorable 

 Henry Fawcett thus speaks of it : " It can hardly be denied that the 

 advantages of this scheme pre[)onderate immensely over its disadvan- 

 tages, and these last appear insignificant compared with the disadvantages 

 of the present system." In the writings of Mr. Fawcett published in 

 i873> ^ve find a short explanation of Mr. Hare's scheme of representation. 

 The explanation is a clear and concise exposition of the plan, reduced to 

 its simplest elements, and is referred to in connection with Mr. Hare's 

 treatise, by John Stuart Mill, in the following terms : " The more these 

 works are studied, the stronger, I venture to predict, will be the impres- 

 sion of the perfect feasibility of the scheme, and its transcendent advan- 

 tages. 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." 



It is not a little remarkable that a Danish statesman, Mr. Andrae, 

 should have arrived at the same conclusions as Mr. Hare, by a different 

 process and from an entirely different standpoint. That the scheme is 

 capable of practical application, must be admitted from the fact that its 

 main features have been embraced in the electoral law of Denmark since 

 1855, for the election of representatives to the Rigsraad. Mr. Andrae's 

 method was likewise applied in 1867 to the law for constituting the 

 Landsthing, and it is still in successful operation.* It will be seen then, 

 that the scheme of minority representation, for which we are indebted to 

 Messrs. Hare and Andrae independently of each other, has had the 

 advantage of an experience of over thirty years. Thus establishing be- 

 yond all question, that there is no inherent obstacle in the subject itself, 

 to the securing of an improved system of electoral representation. Mr- 

 Hare's scheme is so important, that a short explanation of it together 

 Avith other papers on the subject, is appended. This reference to the 



* His Excellency Count Sponneck, Danish minister at Wasliington, writes March 26th, 1892, 

 "the operation of the election law is generally thought to have Ijeen very successful." 



