Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/78

 would therefore demand some court in which they themselves had a direct voice.

This could be created by a Senate half as large as the Assembly. A third of the Senate could be created by large electoral areas, say the provinces, voting by proportional representation. By that method men would be chosen who commanded general respect but did not wear a party colour or control a local following pronounced enough to win favour at the hustings, and who, on the other hand, could not be said to represent any special interest. But two-thirds of the Senate would be chosen in equal proportions by the various councils acting as electoral colleges. Electoral colleges, that act simply and only as electoral colleges, as in America, have generally proved to be failures. They dilute the popular will to no particular purpose, and lend themselves to intrigue. But the councils would not be primarily elected as electoral colleges. They would be elected to control and direct their own special interests. Only in a secondary capacity would they act as electoral colleges. Nor would their appointments to the Senate have the right to sit both in the Councils and in the Senate. Men or women chosen for the Senate by the various councils would sit and act only in the Senate.

Legislation initiated in the Assembly would proceed automatically to the Senate, before which body, if a council felt aggrieved, its case would be argued by its representatives. If Assembly and Senate agreed no further could be said in the matter. If they disagreed, after a given length of time (during