Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/370

318 possibly arise under Mr. Hare's system. He wanted to know why these 49,000 persons were not to be represented? No reason had yet been given why the majority of the people should have the whole of the representation. This principle—which many hon. members were fond of exalting—of taxation and law-making by representatiyes, was practically ignored by the system at present adopted; the majority alone of the community made the laws and taxed the people.

Mr. did not think there wonld be any necessity for discussing Hare's system because the country was so thoroughly against; and it was so imperfectly understood, that every one believed it would never become the law of the land. He considered it to be a system that would never work well in this country; it might look well in theory, but would be impracticable. Too much power would be left in the hands of the Registrar-General, who could almost return what members he pleased.

Mr., among other observations, said: As to the principles of this Bill, he disagreed with them all, except the one pertaining to Hare's system. He believed that no system of representation was so perfect, at so capable of fully eliciting the will of the people as this which was called Hare's. It was impossible to define it fully in a speech, but any hon. member who carefully examined it would see the truth of what he stated. The hon. member (Mr. Harpur) had struck the only objection that he saw to the system, in the suggestion as to two candidates having equal votes. The effect of this would be to throw the election virtually into the hands of one person. But the present and any other system was open to the same objection. Such an occurrence would, however, happen only very rarely. He did not agree with the drawing by lot as proposed, but would prefer to have the decision left to some impartial person, uninfluenced by personal considerations, as a returning officer should at all times be. Hare's system, he repeated, was the only true way of obtaining the will of the people, and by having the whole colony formed into one great electorate, and all the elections taking place on the one day, every one could vote, while no person could possibly vote in more than one electorate. He could not understand how members of that House could say they preferred the present nominee Chamber to an elective House under the Hare system. He was told, when he asked how it was that hon. members could possibly express such an opinion, that they justified the preference indicated on the ground that, in the present state of things, there was the “swamping power” to fall back upon. He could not understand the force of such an argument as that. Was it to be supposed, if a ministry, to insure a majority, should suddenly create a number of new members, that an immediately-succeeding government would be disposed to accept such a set of nominations ? And if they should not accept them, what was to be done ? Was it not clear that their only course in such a case would be to increase the number of members of Council to a very large and indefinite extent, so that the influence of such a Chamber might be practically nullified.