REPORT.
35 f 27.
On the assumption, however, that proportional representation is desirable, can any system yet invented be guaranteed, or reasonably expected to ensure it ?
In our opinion, only to a limited, and generally unascertainable degree.
As between several independent and considerable parties, proportional representation will be attained with all_ practicable accuracy by the Belgian system.
But that system is not favourable either to small independent parties or, what is of greater interest to many observers in this country, to small sections or
" wings " of large parties.
The French system would produce variety of representation, but not necessarily propor¬ tional representation of parties, because it tends to confuse the vote for a party with the vote for a person.
The principal use which would be made by the voter in this country of more than one vote would probably be.
if he used any part of his voting-power outside his own party, to give a vote or two to candidates of other parties for whom he had a preference ; but votes so given would be counted, under the system.
primarily to the parties, with which the elector might have no sympathy at all.
The Transferable Vote, again, is unreliable, because it tends to give a decisive effect upon party representation to votes given least for party reasons.
It was not originally invented as a system of proportional representation, but as a system of personal representation to secure the return of men as men, not as party units; a purpose which it is well calculated to serve.
In elections, therefore, where the party is of no importance, or of less importance than the person, it may be invaluable; for, in such cases, all that is wanted is to find out which men stand most high in the estimation of the voters.
But in political elections it is the balance of parties which is of primary importance.
This balance, under the Transferable Vote, is the net total of the balances obtained in a number of multi-member constituencies, and these balances depend upon late preferences.
The apparent verdict of the country will, therefore, be determined by the least satisfactory criterion which the system provides.
For a considerable number of voters will not exercise their later preferences at all, and of those who do many will be influenced by other than party motives.
128.
While, therefore, any of the three systems would generally produce more accurate results, mathematically at least, than the existing method, their success in producing in Parliament the " small-scale map of the country " which they hold up as the ideal, can be only partial.
The strength of the Belgian system will lie in a country where parties are more than two in number, Large and independent; the strength of the French system where parties are numerous and stand in varying degrees of sympathy one with another; the strength of the Transferable Vote where persons are more important than parties.
129.
The mathematical accuracy of the results obtained in each constituency by systems of proportional representation carries with it a practical corollary which may easily be overlooked.
If such a system is introduced, the necessary redistribution of constituencies will have to be carried out on a definite ratio of members to population or electors.
Otherwise in close contests--and under proportional repre¬ sentation all contests tend to be close—the success of the'majority in the country as a whole will be more or less of a chance, owing to" the unequal effect of a given number of votes in different constituencies.
Thus in Belgium, where the discre¬ pancies in the number of electors to a member are very pronounced, it is stated that both in 1900 and in 1902 a majority of members was returned by a minority of votes in spite of " proportional representation."
130.
On the second half of our reference, the applicability of any of these systems of proportional representation in this country, we desire to report as follows :— 131.
All three systems are feasible, though none of them provides a solution of the problem of bye-elections which is both fitted to English ideas and practically satisfactory.
It would be impossible, we believe, to avoid the necessity of polling the whole of a constituency normally returning several members for each contested bye-election.
In other particulars the Belgian system is from the practical point of view the best, and the Transferable Vote the least satisfactory, because the processes by which the results are arrived at are the most complicated, and we are unable to satisfy ourselves that some slight element of chance is not involved which would excite prejudice, perhaps unreasonable, in the minds of a section of the electorate.
132.
From a wider aspect, however, we conclude that the Belgian system and the French system are both difficult to apply in existing circumstances to English political conditions, and are moreover foredoomed to rejection by English public opinion.
The alternative is therefore between the retention of the present system, with all
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