Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election Part 6

43,000

the Conservatives would have returned two members, and the Liberals, although in a majority, would have returned only one. In brief, the party organizers had to be quite sure that their supporters numbered more than 60 per cent. of the electorate, and that these supporters would vote faithfully as ordered before they could recommend the nomination of three candidates. The attempt to obtain all three seats at Leeds, in the General Election of 1874, failed, with the result that the minority got the larger share of the representation. The poll on this occasion was as follows:--

M. Carter (Liberal)..... 15,390 E. Baines (Liberal) .... 11,850 Dr. F. R. Lees (Liberal). 5,945

33,185

W.St.J.Wheelhouse (Con.) 14,864 R. Tenant (Con.) . . .....13,192

28,056

In this election the total Liberal vote amounted to 33,185, and the total Conservative vote amounted to 28,056, but the Conservatives obtained two seats out of three.

The practical working of the Limited Vote has therefore shown that the representation of a minority in a three-member const.i.tuency was always secured whenever that minority numbered not less than two-fifths of the electors, and as, in the majority of const.i.tuencies, the minority exceeded this proportion the minority was able to return one of the members. The system, however, possesses no elasticity. No party can put forward a complete list of candidates without incurring considerable risk, and even if the party has an ascertained strength of more than three-fifths complete victory is only possible if the members of the party are willing to carry out implicitly the instructions of the party organization. It should be noted, in connexion with this system of voting, that the more limited the vote the greater is the opportunity afforded to the minority to obtain representation. When in a four-member const.i.tuency each elector has three votes the minority must number three-sevenths before it can obtain a representative; if, however, each elector is limited to two votes a smaller minority, namely, a minority which exceeds one-third of the electors, can make sure of returning a member.[3]

_The c.u.mulative Vote_.]

The c.u.mulative Vote, the second of the experiments referred to by Lord Ripen, although by no means free from serious defects, has also secured the object for which it was designed--the representation of minorities.

With this system the member has as many votes as there are members to be elected, and is permitted to distribute them amongst candidates, or to c.u.mulate them among one or more candidates according to his own discretion. It was warmly advocated for the first time under the name of the c.u.mulative Vote by James Garth Marshall in an open letter ent.i.tled "Minorities and Majorities: their Relative Rights," addressed by him in 1853 to Lord John Russell. But three years earlier, in 1850, it was recommended[4] by the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations, and adopted by Earl Grey in the draft Const.i.tution proposed for the Cape of Good Hope. The Legislative Council of Cape Colony continued to be elected under this system until the Council disappeared under the new Const.i.tution of United South Africa. The c.u.mulative Vote secured the representation of minorities in the Legislative Council of Cape Colony, and a striking testimony to its value, from this point of view, was given by Lord Milner when speaking in the House of Lords on 31 July 1906, on the announcement of the terms of the new Transvaal Const.i.tution:--

"I hope," said Lord Milner, "that when the time for making the Second Chamber elective comes, this matter may be reconsidered, for it is certainly very remarkable how much more fairly the system of proportional representation works out in the Cape Colony than the system, not of single members there, but of double-member representation. Take only a single instance. In the Cape Colony, take the bulk of the country districts; you have, roughly speaking, about two Boers to every one white man who is not a Boer. On the system which prevails for the Lower House the representation of these districts is exclusively Boer, for one-third of the population is absolutely excluded from any representation whatever. Under the system which prevails in the election to the Upper House, as nearly as possible one-third of the representatives of those districts are British. Inversely, in the case of the Cape Peninsula, where there is an enormously preponderant British population, but still a considerable Dutch population also, you get in the Lower House no single Dutch representative, whereas in the Upper House there are three representatives, one of whom represents the Dutch section. You could not have a more curious ill.u.s.tration of the great difference in fairness between the two principles as applied to the practical conditions of South Africa. And I cannot help hoping that between this time and the time when the Const.i.tution of the projected Upper House comes to be decided, there may be such a development of opinion as will enable and justify the Government of that day adopting the far sounder principle for the elections to the Upper Chamber. It certainly has a great bearing upon that development of better feeling between the two great races of South Africa whom we are all agreed in desiring to see ultimately amalgamated and fused."

The Cape a.s.sembly was elected by const.i.tuencies returning one or more members, and when more than one each voter could give a single vote to as many candidates as there were members to be elected, with the consequence that the majority in every const.i.tuency commanded the whole of its representation. The Council was elected by larger areas with the c.u.mulative vote. Lord Milner in his speech refers to the c.u.mulative vote as proportional voting, but it cannot, strictly speaking, be so described. Nevertheless his testimony clearly shows that the c.u.mulative vote secured the representation of minorities--the great need of which has been recognized by all impartial students of South African political conditions.

Mr. Robert Lowe endeavoured to introduce this form of voting into the Electoral Reform Bill of 1867, but failed, and the only practical application of the system within the United Kingdom has been in connexion with School Board elections. It was introduced into the Education Act of 1870 on the motion of a private member, Lord Frederick Cavendish, whose proposition, supported as it was by W.E. Forster, Vice-President of the Council for Education, by W.H. Smith and by Henry Fawcett, was carried without a division. Under this Act London was divided into eleven electoral areas, returning from four to seven members each; whilst the large towns, such as Manchester, Birmingham, and others, each const.i.tuted an electoral area itself, electing a Board of some fifteen members. The Education Act for Scotland which followed in the same Parliament embodied the same principle in the-same manner.

The figures of any School Board election will show that the object aimed at--the representation of minorities--was undoubtedly achieved. The last election of the School Board for London, that of 1900, will serve for purposes of ill.u.s.tration. The figures are as follows:--

Votes Obtained. Members Returned.

Const.i.tuency. Mode- Pro- Inde- Mode- Pro- Inde- rate. gressive. pendent. rate. gressive. pendent.

City 4,572 2,183 3 1 Chelsea 7,831 5,408 2,144 3 2 Finsbury 7,573 7,239 837 3 3 1 Greenwich 6,706 6,008 3,375 2 1 Hackney 5,438 9,130 1,579 2 3 Lambeth, E 4,370 9,913 1,313 1 3 Lambeth, W. 8,709 14,156 54 2 4 Marylebone 9,450 7,047 536 4 3 Southwark 2,636 3,430 2,328 1 2 1 Tower Hamlets 6,199 7,437 5,495 1 3 1 Westminster 4,829 2,354 3 2

Totals 68,313 74,305 17,661 25 27 3

In each const.i.tuency the minority was enabled to obtain some representation, and although in the majority of cases the representation was still confined to the two main parties, yet it was possible for an independent candidate, as in the Tower Hamlets, or a Roman Catholic candidate, as in Southwark, to succeed in their respective candidatures.

The c.u.mulative Vote not only secured the representation of minorities, but in so doing facilitated very considerably the working of the Education Act. Mr. Patrick c.u.min, at that time permanent secretary of the Education Department, in giving evidence before a select committee of the House of Commons, stated that "it would not have been possible to carry the Act into effect, and certainly there would have been more friction if the c.u.mulative vote had not been in existence; for instance, he did not believe that the bye-laws could possibly have been carried into effect without co-operation." The Right Hon. W.E. Forster and Sir Francis Sandford bore similar testimony, and the Royal Commission on the Elementary Education Acts, in the Report issued in 1888, strongly advised the retention of a system of minority representation.

The c.u.mulative Vote was also adopted by the State of Illinois for the elections to the State House of Representatives. Each const.i.tuency returns three members, and the elector may c.u.mulate or divide his votes, giving one vote to each candidate, or one and a half votes to each of two candidates, or three votes to one candidate. "As a result," says Professor Commons, "both parties have representatives from every part of the State instead of from the strongholds only, and there are no hopeless minorities of the two main parties. Every citizen who has business before the Legislature has some member of his own party to transact that business." Const.i.tuencies returning three members are, however, not sufficiently large to do justice to this method of voting.

The c.u.mulative Vote, whilst securing representation to the minority, does not necessarily secure the representation of majorities and minorities in their true proportions. As with the Limited Vote, the party organizations, if they desire to make use of their polling strength to the fullest advantage, must make as accurate an estimate as possible of the numbers of their supporters, and must issue explicit directions as to the way in which votes should be recorded. To nominate more candidates than the party can carry may end in disaster. In the first School Board elections in Birmingham the Liberal organization endeavoured to obtain the whole of the representation, and nominated fifteen candidates. The party polled a majority of the votes, but as these votes were distributed over too many candidates, the Liberals succeeded in returning only a minority of representatives. It is not easy to understand how the Birmingham National League came to imagine that, with the c.u.mulative Vote, they would still be able to elect a Board composed of members entirely of their own side, and Mr. Forster banteringly suggested that the League should obtain the a.s.sistance of a well-taught elementary schoolboy who would be able to show them that it was impossible to get the return which they supposed they might obtain.

While there was little excuse for the mistake made by the Birmingham National League, it must be remembered that with the c.u.mulative Vote it is easy to fall into the opposite error of nominating too few candidates. Every School Board election furnishes examples of an excessive concentration of votes upon individual candidates. The Glasgow School Board election of 1909 resulted as follows:--

Elected----James Barr 81,109 Canon Dyer 58,711 John Shaughnessy 54,310 Charles Byrne 54,236 Rev. James Brisby 51,357 W. Rounsfell Brown 35,739 R. S. Allan 24,017 Rev. J. Fraser Grahame 23,806 Dr. Henry Dyer 23,422 Mrs. Mary Mason 22,929 W. Martin Haddow 21,880 Rev. Robert Pryde 21,692 Miss K. V. Bannatyne 18,864 Mrs. Agnes Hardie 18,794 J. Leiper Gemmil 18,619 Unelected--Rev. J. A. Robertson 18,534 James Welsh 13,951 Dr. Sloan 13,114 S. M. Lipschitz 12,680 Dr. Charles Workman 7,405 James Laidlaw 4,869 Patrick Gallagher 2,478 ------- 602,516

It will be seen that the candidate at the head of the list, Mr. Barr, obtained over 81,000 votes, and the highest of the unsuccessful candidates 18,534 votes. The total number of votes polled was 602,516, and one-fifteenth of this number, viz. 40,167, would have been amply sufficient to secure the return of any one candidate. The votes given to Mr. Barr in excess of this number were wasted, and thus, although with the c.u.mulative vote minorities can secure representation, neither majorities nor minorities secure with any degree of certainty representation in their true proportions.

_The Single Vote_.]

j.a.pan, keenly alive to the evils of a defective electoral system, abandoned, after a short trial, the system adopted when the j.a.panese Const.i.tution was promulgated in 1889. The administrative areas (with some exceptions) were then divided into single-member const.i.tuencies, but it was soon found how unsatisfactorily this system works. It would appear from a memorandum prepared by Mr. Kametaro Hayas.h.i.+da, Chief Secretary of the j.a.panese House of Representatives--a memorandum which is printed in full in Appendix I.--that in certain of the administrative areas a minority of the voters often obtained a majority of the members elected. It was almost impossible for political parties to obtain representation in proportion to the strength of their supporters. In 1900 a new election law was adopted. The administrative areas, irrespective of size, were made parliamentary const.i.tuencies returning a number of members varying from one to twelve according to the population of the area, but the voter in any area was permitted only one vote. He can vote for one candidate and no more. Under this system minorities can and do get a share of representation whenever the area returns two or more members. A secondary advantage of considerable importance was secured by making the administrative areas conterminous with the parliamentary const.i.tuencies. Future redistributions of seats would leave the boundaries of these areas untouched; they would merely consist of a re-arrangement of the number of members to be returned by each area.

The new system secured not only the representation of minorities, but also the representation of the chief parties in reasonable proportion to their voting strength. Further, to men of independent mind and character the new system offered a greater opportunity of maintaining their position in the House of Representatives. As will be seen from Mr.

Hayas.h.i.+da's memorandum, both Mr. Ozaki, the Mayor of Tokio, and Mr. S.

s.h.i.+mada, have never lost their seats in Parliament, although they have stood as independent candidates. At the General Election of 1908 they were returned for their native prefecture or town with a great number of votes. These are results of no mean value which are certainly not possible with our Parliamentary system of single-member const.i.tuencies, or with the block vote as used in the London munic.i.p.al elections. Yet, in spite of the marked superiority of the j.a.panese system, it falls short of a true system of representation; it lacks the elasticity and adaptability which should characterize such a system. Like the limited vote and the c.u.mulative vote, the j.a.panese system of the single vote demands exact calculations on the part of party organizations, which otherwise may fail to secure for their party the maximum number of representatives. The number of candidates nominated must depend upon a careful estimate of probable support, and when the nominations have taken place efforts must be made by the party organizations to allot this support to their candidates in such a way that not one of them is in danger of defeat. Moreover, as the nomination of too large a number of candidates would, as with the limited vote, be disastrous, parties have in some const.i.tuencies been unwilling to nominate more than the number of candidates who were successful at the previous election.

_The need of minority representation_.]

It cannot be maintained then, as was suggested by Lord Ripon, that the experiments made for the purpose of securing the representation of minorities have failed. All the methods tried--the limited, the c.u.mulative, and the single vote--have without question accomplished their purpose. They have done even more. The c.u.mulative vote facilitated the smooth working of the Elementary Education Act, the single vote has secured for j.a.pan a House of Representatives which reflects in reasonable proportions the political forces of the country. The problem for the future is not the abandonment of the principle of minority representation, but the adoption of such improvements in voting mechanism as will do justice to majorities and to minorities alike. For the need of minority representation is becoming more and not less urgent. A brief reference to the more important Parliamentary Bills of recent years will show that the most difficult problems which our administrators have had to face in the framing of those Bills have centred round the problem of representation--and that problem will recur with greater frequency in the future. Mr. Birrell, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, considered it essential that some special provision for the representation of minorities should be embodied in the Irish Administrative Council Bill introduced into the House of Commons in May 1907. But the method proposed--that the Council should consist of eighty-two elected members and twenty-four nominated members--was essentially undemocratic. The nominated members, even if they were representative of the minority, would never have had the same authority or influence as they would have had as members duly elected by the votes of the minority; and even if we admit the special difficulties attending the representation of minorities in Ireland the solution proposed by Mr.

Birrell was in every sense of the term unsatisfactory, and obviously of a temporary character. The first step towards the solution of Irish problems will have been taken when due provision has been made by popular election for the representation of minorities.

Lord Morley of Blackburn, in preparing his great scheme of Indian reforms, found himself face to face with the same problem--the representation of minorities. He had, moreover, been advised by the Indian Government that "in most provinces the Muhammadans are in favour of election, and regard nomination as an inferior method of obtaining admission to the Legislative Council."[5] Lord Morley, willingly or unwillingly, was compelled to brush aside the English electoral methods as inapplicable to India, and to provide for the representation on the proposed Provincial Legislative Councils of Hindus and Muhammadans in proportion to their strength. The method proposed was an arbitrary one, and can be best described by quoting the terms of Lord Morley's preliminary despatch.

"Let it be supposed that the total population of the Province is twenty millions, of whom fifteen millions are Hindus and five millions Muhammadans, and the number of members to be elected twelve. Then since the Hindus are to Muhammadans as three to one, nine Hindus should be elected to three Muhammadans. In order to obtain these members, divide the Province into three electoral areas, in each of which three Hindus and one Muhammadan are to be returned. Then, in each of these areas, const.i.tute an electoral college, consisting of, let us say, a hundred members. In order to preserve the proportion between the two religions, seventy-five of these should be Hindus and twenty-five Muhammadans. This electoral college should be obtained by calling upon the various electorates ... to return to it such candidates as they desired, a definite number being allotted to each electorate. Out of those offering themselves and obtaining votes, the seventy-five Hindus who obtained the majority of votes should be declared members of the College, and the twenty-five Musalmans who obtained the majority should similarly be declared elected. If the Musalmans returned did not provide twenty-five members for the Electoral College, the deficiency would be made good by nomination. Having thus obtained an Electoral College containing seventy-five Hindus and twenty-five Musalmans, that body would be called upon to elect three representatives for the Hindus and one for the Muhammadans; each member of the College would have only one vote, and could vote for only one candidate. In this way it is evident that it would be in the power of each section of the population to return a member in the proportion corresponding to its own proportion to the total population."[6]

Lord Morley proceeded to explain that "in this manner minorities would be protected against exclusion by majorities, and all large and important sections of the population would have the opportunity of returning members in proportion to their ratio to the total population.

Their choice would in that event be exercised in the best possible way, that, namely, of popular election, instead of requiring Government to supply deficiencies by the dubious method of nomination." The system of nomination, considered by Mr. Birrell as an adequate solution of this problem in Ireland, was summarily rejected, and rightly so, by Lord Morley as being inferior to popular election, inferior even to the arbitrary method proposed by himself. The plan finally adopted by Lord Morley was a modification of the proposal here outlined, and its working, as the working of all arbitrary schemes must, has evoked criticism on the ground that it does not hold the scales even as between the two sections to be represented.

The Select Committee appointed by the House of Lords "to consider the suggestions made from time to time for increasing the efficiency of that House," was compelled to propose a method of election by which the Liberal minority might retain some representation in that House. In the election of Representative Peers for Scotland the majority method of election is followed, with the result that none but Unionists are chosen. It was obvious that no proposal for the reform of the House of Lords which embodied an electoral method so unjust could possibly be entertained, and therefore this Select Committee, following in this all previous proposals for the reform of the Upper House, reported that the representation of the minority was essential. A new Second Chamber is now advocated both by Liberals and Unionists.

Again, Mr. Asquith's Government experienced a very distinct rebuff in its attempt to abolish the c.u.mulative vote in the elections of Scottish School Boards without making any alternative provision for the representation of minorities. The Government proposed to subst.i.tute the block vote for the c.u.mulative vote. The block vote would have enabled the majority of the electors to have secured the whole of the representation on the Board. The deletion of the Government's proposal was proposed in the Scottish Grand Committee, but was defeated. A further amendment by Mr. Phipson Beale in favour of the principle of proportional representation was, in spite of the strong opposition of the Secretary for Scotland, defeated only by twenty-two votes to eighteen. The Government finally withdrew their proposal to abolish the c.u.mulative vote, and it has been made abundantly clear that, while the c.u.mulative vote is far from satisfactory, it can only be dispensed with by the introduction of a better and more scientific way of securing the representation of minorities.

In framing the Port of London Bill, Mr. Lloyd George had to make some provision for the representation of the various interests concerned, and so far as possible, in due proportion. It was impossible to entrust the control of the new Port to the largest interest only, and accordingly he proposed that "in prescribing the manner in which votes are to be recorded, the Board of Trade shall have regard to the desirability of votes being so recorded, whether by allowing the voter to record a vote for a number of candidates in order of preference or otherwise, as to secure that so far as possible the several interests concerned shall be adequately represented on the Port Authority."[7] The reports of the Poor Law Commission also raise in an acute form the problem of minority representation. If the far-reaching suggestions of these reports are to become law, and especially if the powers of County and County Borough Councils are to be still further increased, the const.i.tution of these bodies will have to be closely examined. Are minorities to be excluded altogether from the new authorities; are they to secure representation through the processes of co-option and nomination; or are they to obtain a hearing by a system of election that will provide them with representation in their own right?

While these and other matters are bringing into greater prominence the need of minority representation, a new problem--one with which the Continent has long been familiar--has arisen in connexion with English parliamentary elections. In an increasing number of contests three or more candidates have taken the field, and the candidate obtaining the highest number of votes has been elected although he may have received less than half the votes recorded. A member so chosen obviously represents only a minority of the electors in the const.i.tuency for which he has been returned. Such results have come as a shock to those who have hitherto accepted with composure the more glaring anomalies of our electoral system, and so the growing frequency of three-cornered fights will a.s.sist those other forces which are making for a complete readjustment of our electoral methods. The new problem is, however, quite distinct from that of minority representation, and is of sufficient importance to warrant consideration in a separate chapter.

[Footnote 1: 30 April 1907.]

[Footnote 2: "One ward voted for A and B, another for A and C, a third for B and C, a fourth for A and B, &c. The voter who had left the selection of the three candidates to the general committee was also to renounce the privilege of selecting from them the two which he preferred. 'Vote as you are told' was the pa.s.s word."--Ostrogorski, _Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties_, vol. i. p. 162.]

[Footnote 3: If in a four-member const.i.tuency the number of voters is 21,000 and the parties are in the ratio of 12,000 to 9000, the larger party would, if each elector had three votes, have 36,000 votes in all and the smaller party would have 27,000. No candidate of the smaller party could obtain more than 9000 votes, whilst the 36,000 votes of the larger party carefully divided among four candidates would also allow each candidate to receive 9000 votes. If then the larger party had slightly more than 12,000 supporters out of a total of 21,000, the larger party would obtain all four seats, as each of its candidates would, if the votes were carefully distributed, receive more than 9000 votes each.]

[Footnote 4: "If it is desired that the body should not be a representation of a single interest and a single cla.s.s of opinions, some means must be adopted to guard against its falling entirely into the hands of the dominant party. With this view we would recommend that, in the election of the council, each elector should have as many votes as there might be members to be chosen, and should be ent.i.tled to give all these votes to a single candidate, or to distribute them among several.

By this arrangement a monopoly of power in the Legislative Council by any one party, or any one district of the Colony, would be prevented, since a minority of the electors, by giving all their votes to a single candidate, would be enabled to secure his return."--Earl Grey, _The Colonial Policy of the Administration of Lord John Russell_, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 362.]

[Footnote 5: _East India_ (Advisory and Legislative Councils, &c.) (Cd.

4426), p. 14.]

[Footnote 6: _East India_ (Advisory and Legislative Councils, &c.) (Cd.

4426), p. 45.]

[Footnote 7: Port of London Act, 1908, Schedule I., Part IV. (1).]

CHAPTER V

THE SECOND BALLOT AND THE TRANSFERABLE VOTE IN SINGLE-MEMBER CONSt.i.tUENCIES