Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/367

Rh the selection of the voting papers which were to he taken as the surplus beyond any candidate's quota, general policy required some rules, and these have been applied. The first rule was to select those on which the greatest number of contingent votes were entered. The reason of this was obvious. The greater the number of names entered, the less likely was the vote to be lost in the dection. After this rule had been applied, Mr. Hare had introduced a great number of complicated rules, which he had rejected for the sake of greater simplicity. All that appeared necessary to him was, to provide some rule which should preclude any selection of papers by the registrar, through personal or political motives. A political motive could, indeed, hardly apply, because the question would not be (as now, in ordinary elections) between candidates of different parties, but those of a second choice of two electors of the same party, which of two voters for A should have a second choice, because A did not require both votes. An equality of chance was the only impartial course to be adopted, and the most convenient mode of accomplishing this seemed to be the taking the votes in the order in which they happened to stand on the roll; and, notwithstanding it was characterised by the hon. and learned Attomey-General as absurd and ridiculous, he would venture to abide by it until some wiser and better plan were suggested; when that were done, he was perfectly ready to consider and adopt it. The hon. member (Captain Ward) said that under this system A might be returned and B rejected by a course which had no greater merit than the system of tossing up. This was a very narrow and fallacious view of the case. The system was a matter altogether distinct from the tossing up. True, it might be that in the working of the system, as in that of any other, a state of facts might result in which there might be a tie, or two or more parties might have equal claim to that which all could not by the nature of the case obtain. A resort to some plan equivalent to tossing up was in such case the only way out of the difficulty. But the hon. member (Captain Ward) had not been content with criticising the system of Mr. Hare. He has declared his preference for another. The system of single voting without quotas and without contingent voting appears to him preferable. It will, he says, protect minorities better. Possibly it might do so; but in what manner and at what expense of confusion and injustice towards majorities it might be worth while first to consider. Taking his friend Capitain Ward's illustrations in order, he would answer his objections teriaiim. In his first example, he complained that if 1, 2, 3 were taken to make A's quota, A and C would be returned, whereas if 4, 5, and 6 be taken, A and B would be returned. He (Mr. Holden) denied that this was any objection, unless either B had some claim superior to A, or A superior to B. This not being shown, some form of decision by lot was the just and proper course. If instead of an election by contingent voting the votes had been taken by 1, 2, and 3 going to the poll first, and 4, 5, and 6—knowing how they had voted—going to the poll afterwards, and voting for the candidates of their respective second choice, in consequence