Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/360

308 It has been urged on the attention of your Committee, not only by the intrinsic merits of the scheme, but from the circnmstance that it admits of being applied to the formation of a Colonial Legislative Council in a much simpler form than it presents in the original scheme of the author, as intended for application to the British House of Commons. The mere fact of its tending to increase the distinctness of character between the two Houses has been felt to be a strong recommendation. Your Committee are not disposed to shrink from its adoption merely because it is new and experimental.

“The leading feature of the plan is the representation of all the electors, in the proportion of the numbers of their respective parties and sections, instead of the representation merely of the majorities prevailing in each local electorate, while leaving the defeated minorities wholly without representation. Under the usual system, if one interest or prejudice be prevalent in a majority of the electors in twenty constituencies, twenty members may be elected to represent those majorities, although the minorities may collectively amount to a number not far short of the successful majorities. A difference of one vote in each electorate might determine the election, and twenty votes might thus determine the fate of twenty elections, leaving thousands of electors, forming the minorities, without a single representative. This is doubtless an extreme supposition; but the merits of any system may be fairly illustrated by showing to what it tends when carried to its utmost length.

“The system of Mr. Hare provides a remedy; but while it renders this injustice to minorities impossible, it equally maintains all the just rights of majorities. It establishes a true representation of the whole society, with its various interests and opinions represented in due proportion; and the manner in which this is effected is, when fully explained and understood, extremely simple. Supposing the number of voters to be 30,000, and the number of members to be thirty, each 1000 voters (called a quota) is considered entitled to be represented by one member. Instead of a local electorate, inhabited by 1000 electors of divided opinion, and comprising a minority, which, if out-voted in that particular electorate, is left wholly without representation in the legislature, each member's constituency will consist of 1000 electors, coinciding in their choice of a representative, irrespective of their places of residence. For this purpose, the whole colony will form a single electorate, the electoral districts of the Assembly being adopted solely for the purpose of more conveniently making up the roll and polling the votes, but not for the purpose of restricting the votes of the electors to any special local candidates. This term “single electorate” will, however, be apt to lead to a serious misapprehension, unless care be taken to observe that under Mr. Hare's system the effect of a consolidation of many electorates into one is quite the reverse of that which would result under the present system of voting. Under the present system, it would merely give the aggregate majority the power of