PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

New Zealand Tablet, 29 July 1915, Page 41

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

Summary of an address delivered by the Rev. Father Hurley, S.M., at the Wellington Diocesan Council meeting of the Catholic Federation on July 15. ' The essential property of representative government,' says a learned constitutional lawyer, •' is to produce coincidence between the wishes of the sovereign and the wishes of the subject.' Representative Govern| ment, or Parliament itself, should be the central aridpredominant factor in the constitution, and exercise sovereign power because it represents the nation which it governs. Representative Government, as distinguished from Autocracy, has been brought about by the spread of Liberalism, the growth of Democracy, and progressive enfranchisement. And as the great body of the people began to bestir itself it was thought that social and national dissatisfaction could be given at the same- time a voice and a remedy in the ballot box. It is quite plain now that.those who first organised the parliamentary institutions which are at present the ruling institutions of the greater part of mankind fell a prey to certain now very obvious errors. They did not realise that there are many different ways in which voting may be done, and that every way gives a different result. They thought, and it is still thought by many people, that if a country is divided up into approximately equivalent areas each returning one 1 or two representatives, if every citizen is given one vote, that presently a cluster of the wisest, most trusted, and best citizens will come together in the legislative assembly. Experience has shown, to say the least, that this has not been the case. Our present systemexclusive majority representationhas often, as we have seen, resulted in a gross exaggeration of the majority; sometimes in a total suppression of the minority, and on other occasions in the return of a majority of representatives by a minority of the electors. For example, when Gladstone made his great appeal to the electors of England -on the question of Home Rule he was defeated. That is to say, the Conservatives were returned to power, but by a minority of electors. The majority of the electors of England voted for Home Rule, and were represented, and governed, by a party which would have none of it! The same thing has happened in New Zealand, the elected and ruling Government, representing a minority of the electors. To define or describe such a state of affairs as representative government is beside the mark. These evils have happened when only two parties have been seeking representation ; when a third party enters the arena the system breaks down completely, and all efforts to restore majority representation by a system of second ballots have proved a ghastly failure. Now, it is not difficult to find a solution for all these problems which is at the same time satisfactory and effective. It is only necessary to return to the first principles of democracy, to keep steadily in view the meaning of that self-government which we desire to achieve through representative institutions. Selfgovernment can only be realised when every section of the community, through its own representatives, can give expression to its needs in the assembly which is representative of the nation. This assembly acts in the name of the nation ; its decisions are said to embody the national will. But if any considerable section of the nation is deprived from whatever cause of representation in the Parliament, then that Parliament's decisions do not give expression to the national will. J. S. Mill's fundamental principle of democracy was that the various sections of political opinion should be represented in the legislative Chamber in proportion to their strength. This can only be assured by Proportional Representation, which may be defined as a system of voting that aims to secure that every political section in the community shall be represented in Parliament according to its strength or in proportion to its numerical value. ■-«•'■

There are various systems of voting to procure Proportional Representation. r The one of practical - interest to us in this country is what is called the single transferable vote. Each elector has one vote, which may be given in. the first instance to', one candidate, but which in the event of his already having a sufficient quota of votes to return him may be transferred to another candidate. w .-..>; .:-:;: ~ ..--_::....;.i,_.—. >•: .-•.,*..- Large Constituencies. For a sj'stem of proportional representation the first requirement is the formation of constituencies returning several members. So long as single member constituencies are retained, elections must necessarily take the form of a struggle for the whole of the representation allotted to the constituency. There is but one prize-r-a prize which is indivisible, —and the proportional distribution of that prize is impossible. Other things being equal, it may bo laid down that the larger the constituency and the more numerous its representatives, the greater the chance of all varieties of thought and opinion being represented. The Transferable Vote.—The transferable vote enables the elector to instruct the returning officer to whom his vote is to be transferred in the event of his first favourite either receiving more support than he requires or receiving so little as to has-e no chance of election The Quota. —The number of votes necessary to Becure the election of a candidate is called the ' quota.' At first sight it would seem that this number should be ascertained by dividing the number of votes cast, not the number on the roll, by the number of vacancies. But a smaller proportion is sufficient. Thus in a single member constituency a candidate has no need to poll all the votes. It is evident that if he polls one more than half he will be elected. The quota in this case is one more than a half. In general terms the quota is ascertained by dividing the votes polled by one more than the number of seats to be filled and adding one to the result. The Voting. The voting in this system is as simple as any other. The voter marks clearly in the list of candidates the order of his preference by placing 1,2, 3, and so forth against the names. For instance, if an elector in a certain election wished to vote for Mr. John Redmond he would place on the ballot paper the figure 1 against his name. If in addition ho placed the figures 2,3, etc., against the names of other candidates in the order of his choice these figures would instruct the returning officer in the event of Mr. Redmond obtaining more votes than were necessary to secure his election, as to whom the vote was to be transferred. Or again if Mr. Redmond were at the bottom of the poll, or had no chance of election, the returning officer would similarly give effect to the wishes of the elector as recorded on the ballot paper by transferring the vote to the elector's second choice. The Scrutiny.—The counting of the votes, which is somewhat difficult, is left to experts, and takes some little time. Let a constituency be supposed in which candidates represented by the letters of the alphabet struggle for eleven places. Suppose twelve thousand votes are cast; then the quota is one thousand plus one. The voting papers are first classified according to the first votes or against which the figure 1 had been marked. Let us assume that the result of the voting Ij as follows: ■

As trie quota is 1001 both A and B are elected with 2000 and 90 votes respectively to spare. The next step is to transfer A and B's surplus votes in accordance with the wishes of their supporters. These have indicated on the ballot papers by the letter 2 to whom they desire their votes to be transferred. There are different methods by which this transfer of votes may be carried out, but practically, speaking all give the same result, and a detailed explanation of each can-

not here be given owing to the limits of time and space.,; However, we will suppose that C received 500 of A's surplus, 500 went to D, 300 to E, and so on. C would then be elected with 900 plus 500 votes, i.e. 1400. Then B's surplus would be counted and distributed, and probably D, E, and F would then be found to be elected. Then Z's 50 votes being useless, would distributed in accordance with his voter's wishes, '■■' and might be all given to G and give him a sufficient quota for election. X and Y's votes would also be distributed, and so on until the eleven places would be filled. In this way the wasting of a vote becomes practically impossible. And if in the supposed electorate there are 4050 Liberals, 2500 Conservatives, 2250 Laborites, 2150 Catholics, 1050-Radicals, as the quota is 1001 it would be found that the Liberals would obtain four seats, Conservatives two, Labor two, Catholics two, and the Radicals one. To have representation a party must have at least a number amounting to the quota required. This method, and this method alone, gives representative government. It is not a faddish pro? posal, not a perplexing ingenious complication of a simple business: it is -the carefully-worked-out right way to do something that hitherto we have been doing in the wrong way. It is the substitution of right for wrong. Certainly it is unfamiliar and appears complicated ; but for tho voter it is as simple as any other method; the complications are unravelled by the returning officer and his staff, in the central booth where all the votes are collected and counted. To condemn it merely because it is complicated would be to act like the man who approved of an electric tram, but said he thought it would go better without all that jiggerypokery of wires above. It's practical interest for us a? Catholics lies in the fact that by it, we, being one-seventh of the people, would have twelve Catholic members in Parliament, elected by the Catholic body, to watch over Catholic interests, explain the Catholic position and doctrine when needed, and protect Catholic rights. It has been somewhat difficult to explain this system of voting in a brief address, but it is hoped that at least an idea of the general working of the system has been grasped.

A is marked 1 on 3001 papers and therefore has 3001 votes B .. 1 1091 1091 .. C .. 1 900 900 Y .. 1 64 64 .. Z .. 1 50 50 ..