24 Proportional Representation. 



wanting in the knowledge which is necessary for considering 

 political problems from time to time, because it only represents 

 one side ; wanting the thought that is necessary, because it only 

 represents one form of thought ; wanting in the experience 

 which is necessary, because it only represents one form of 

 experience. 



When we, from our historical past, and from our know- 

 ledge of the present, speak of representative Government and 

 what we desire thereby, we mean that in the assembly to 

 which is to be entrusted the power of choosing the Government 

 and controlling and directing it, there ought to be found a 

 representation not merely of the dominant side in the electorate, 

 but of all sides : — not only of two sides, but of all possible sides 

 that can be found in the electorate: — so that in the elected assem- 

 bly we may, if possible, obtain a representation as faithful as it 

 can be of the shades of opinion amongst the electing persons — 

 not merely, to use the popular language, that there should be 

 Tories and Whigs or Conservatives and Radicals, but that there 

 may be those go-betweens who go from one to the other, who 

 ought to be reflected in the political body, if the political body is 

 to have within it those elements of knowledge and experience 

 and of thought which are necessary for the right formation of 

 opinion, 



I believe we all instinctively feel that if we are going 

 to elect a representative at all, and if we are going to fulfil the 

 idea of representative government, we must have in our re- 

 presentative assembly some representation, not merely of the 

 majority of the community, but of the minority also. Suppos- 

 ing we want to get in a representative assembly representatives 

 of two sides, how shall we do it ? The popular answer for a 

 a long time has been — and the popular answer at this moment 

 is — this : suppose we have got a hundred persons to be elected 

 and a hundred thousand to elect them :— we distribute the 

 electors locally into districts, each containing as nearly as 

 possible a thousand persons, and let each thousand elect by a 

 majority the person who is to represent that district. We thus 



