Proportional Representation. 2$ 



get from the hundred districts a hundred persons, each person 

 representing the majority in the district, and the hundred 

 persons so elected may be taken as representing the fair divisions 

 of opinion and the fair divisions of knowledge and experience 

 and political thought amongst the whole electorate. That is 

 the popular answer. I have to submit to you the truth, that 

 you do not secure this conclusion. You may obtain it, but you 

 have no security that you will, and in many cases you certainly 

 will not. 



Consider the case of five divisions, and a thousand persons in 

 each division. Each division is to elect one out of five persons. 

 The principles upon which the older reformers used to rely was 

 that the minority of the five divisions would always correspond 

 to the minority of the five thousand electors. I venture to say 

 there is no such security. Take the divisions, call them A, B, 

 C, D, and E, and call the two parties X and Y. In Division A 

 let the thousand be divided in the proportion 550 for X and 450 

 for Y, which gives a majority for X of 100, and let it be the 

 same in the case of B and C. Well, now, in D it may happen 

 that there is a considerable difference, and the party in favour 

 of X is only 400, while those in favour of Y are 600 strong, and 

 in the case of E let the same rule obtain. Now the result will 

 be that X gets 2,450 votes with three members, and Ygets 2,550 

 votes with two members. If you have followed my illustration 

 in detail, you will have seen that although the electors are divided 

 into five equal divisions, with a thousand in each, the result of 

 the distribution of the parties is such that the party Y, which 

 has a majority of the whole, has only two members, and the 

 party which has the minority has three members. That is a 

 proof that the system of dividing the electorate in equal bodies 

 with equal members in each, and giving each the right to elect 

 one member, does not secure the condition that the balance of 

 influence or opinion in the elected chamber should correspond 

 with the balance of opinion in the electorate, which is the first 

 great thing to be attained. But this is not done. Now, 

 this is not an extraordinary hypothesis, and if some person 



