Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

by John H. Humphreys

In South Africa each State is represented by eight Senators chosen by the local Parliaments by means of the single transferable vote. The first elections gave the following result:—

SOUTH AFRICA: SENATE ELECTIONS, 1910

Seats Obtained. States. Dutch Parties[18] British Parties[18]

Cape Colony South African 6 Progressive 2 Transvaal Het Volk and
Progressive and Nationalist 5 Labour 3 Natal Dutch 1 British 7 Orange
Free State Orangia Unie 6 Constitutionalist 2 — — Total 18 Total 14

In the one case minorities are completely suppressed; in the other the minority in each State obtains representation.

These two illustrations show that if the House of Lords is to be strengthened by the infusion of an elected element chosen by large constituencies, a true system of election must be adopted. This is the conclusion arrived at by Professor Ramsay Muir[19] after a careful examination of the different methods by which a Second Chamber can be constituted. All suggestions as to the selection of peers by hereditary peers, of peers qualified by service, by nomination, by indirect election, by direct election on a limited franchise, are ruled out and the direct election of a new Second Chamber by the single transferable vote is advocated in order that the new House may contain those elements which fail to secure representation with a system of single-member constituencies. But if, by the adoption of direct popular election and proportional representation, the Upper House were made more truly representative than the Lower, then whatever resolutions were passed defining the relations between the two Houses there is not much doubt that power would tend to pass into the hands of the more representative House. In commenting upon the Royal Commission's report The Nation[20] said: "Perhaps the most pregnant sentence in this whole report is that in which the Commission suggests that proportional representation might be a suitable basis for an elective Senate. We have our liberty of choice, and democracy may find its account in either alternative. We may prefer to retain an imperfectly representative Lower House. But if we place above it a really representative Senate the whole balance of the Constitution might be altered, and the Senate become the more venerable, the more democratic, and in the end, the more powerful Chamber. We may, on the other hand, reform the House of Commons, and render any Senate superfluous. In either event, proportional representation may become the ultimate key to our constitutional problem."

Federal Home Rule.

The same question, the method of election, must enter into the consideration of those larger schemes, Federal Home Rule and Imperial Federation, which have been mooted in the discussion of the constitutional relations between the two Houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. A writer in The Times,[21] whose series of letters attracted considerable attention, said that the "central idea of Federalism appears to be that our present single Imperial Parliament, which does, or makes an attempt at doing, all the complicated work—first of the Empire, and second of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and third of the various countries which together make up the United Kingdom—is no longer adequate to the purpose. The Federalists therefore propose that the Imperial Parliament, while maintaining its supremacy absolutely intact, shall delegate a large part of its functions to a number of subordinate national or provincial Parliaments, who shall manage the domestic affairs of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, or of such other territorial divisions as may be agreed upon. These national or provincial Parliaments will be entirely independent one of another, but all will acknowledge the full and absolute sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament." Mr. Birrell stated that "Federation beginning here at home, as it is called, is ripening for a speedy decision. Such a Federation once established would be able to find room for our Dominions overseas as and when they wished to come in. We should have then a truly Imperial Parliament, at the door of which any one of our Dominions could come in, and as it were hang up its hat and coat in his Mother's House and take part in common Imperial proceedings, and in the government of this great Empire."[22] These are great changes, and without entering too deeply into details of how these new bodies are to be brought into being, it is certain that one of the conditions of their successful working is that they must be fully representative. It is inconceivable that a national council can be set up for Wales, or for Scotland, or for Ireland, without provision for the adequate representation of minorities. Lord Morley, in instituting the new Councils in India, was compelled to make provision for the representation of Muhammedans. Mr. Birrell, in the Irish Council Bill of 1907, proposed that minorities should be represented by members nominated by the Crown. It is impossible to reconcile this reactionary proposal with democratic principles, and there can be no possible reason for its adoption when there is a method of election available which enables minorities to choose their own representatives.

Imperial federation.

Mr. Birrell's vision of an Imperial Parliament for the British Empire raises once more the value of a true method of election. An Imperial Parliament will not accomplish its purpose—the consolidation of the Empire—if the basis of representation is such as to give undue emphasis to the separate interests of the constituent States. Further, it would seem desirable that the establishment of such a Parliament should be preceded by the more complete unification of the various States, for in no other Empire are there so many racial divisions, and it is from these that the greatest of political difficulties spring—in Ireland the division between north and south; in the United Kingdom between Ireland and Great Britain; in South Africa between the Dutch and British; in Canada between the French and British. The majority system of election brings out these differences in their acutest form. In Canada in 1910 no representative from the Province of Quebec attended the National Conference of Canadian Conservatives; of the four Provinces forming the South African Union it was in the Orange Free State, where in the local Parliament the minority was almost wholly deprived of representation, that racial differences gave rise to the keenest feeling. Proportional representation has proved itself to have been of the greatest value in bi-racial countries such as Belgium where the representation of political parties no longer coincides with racial divisions. The adoption of proportional representation in the United Kingdom, in Canada, and for all elections in South Africa would complete the consolidation of these various divisions of the Empire, and even where racial difficulties do not exist, as in Australia and New Zealand, the fair representation of all classes of citizens would free questions of Imperial politics from the dangers of exaggerated party majorities.