28 Proportional Representation. 



But how is it to be done ? You have got 5,000 to elect 

 five persons. Instead of dividing your 5,000 persons locally 

 into a thousand each inhabiting its district — ist, 2nd, 3rd, 

 4th, and 5th — and saying to the thousand in district A, 

 * You elect a man by your majority," and to the thousand in B 

 district, " You elect a man by the majority," and so on, we say 

 to the 5,000, " If any one thousand can choose a man that one 

 thousand shall have a member." All the 5,000 will thus get 

 an actual representative in the five. Any one of the 5,000 

 will be able to say, "I have got my member there." The 

 three who form a majority of the five must necessarily corres- 

 pond to the 3,000 forming a majority of the 5,000. You secure 

 in your elected body a representation of all the electors. Every- 

 body is brought into vital union with the elected body, and you 

 secure a faithful representation of the division of the electors. 

 The member will not be dependent for re-election upon the 

 necessity of getting a majority of votes in the restricted number 

 of 1,000 to vote for him ; he will secure his election if he can 

 draw together any 1,000 who will continue to vote for him ; 

 and, although he may lose some voters here, he will gain some 

 voters there, and he will have the confidence of not being any 

 longer tied and bound by the conditions of party adherence. 

 He may, by the force of his own vitality, virtue, and character, 

 bring together whenever a re-election came another 1,000. I 

 need not point out what an enormous difference this would 

 have upon the character of men in the House of Commons, 

 and upon the character of the men who have to send men to 

 the House of Commons. 



I have dropped for the first time the words House of Commons, 

 and I apologize, because we are speaking in the air — we were 

 speaking of legislative assemblies. We may see how powerful 

 independent thought would be within the legislative assembly, 

 and how powerful independent action would be, if a person so 

 acting were aware that there were many without who corresponded 

 with his thoughts and who vibrated to his action, whose will and 

 feelings and impulses marched with his own, and that he was 



