The London County Council elections.
A swing of the pendulum which, measured in votes, would have transferred a majority of twelve into a minority of seventeen, had the effect of changing a majority of 49 into a minority of 41. This alternate exaggeration of the prevailing tendencies in municipal politics gives rise to a false impression of the real opinions of the elector. The citizens of London are not so unstable as the composition of their Council, but it is the more violent displacement which forms the basis of comment in the press and of municipal action. These elections, too, like the Parliamentary elections, showed with what ease the minority throughout large areas may be deprived of representation. Six adjoining suburban boroughs—Brixton, Norwood, Dulwich, Lewisham, Greenwich, Woolwich—were, before the election of 1907, represented by twelve Progressives. At that election they returned twelve Moderates; indeed on that occasion the outer western and southern boroughs, in one continuous line from Hampstead to Fulham, from Wandsworth to Woolwich, returned Moderates and Moderates only.
The election of aldermen of the L.C.C.
The London County Council elections of 1910 gave the Municipal Reform party a majority of two councillors over the Progressive and Labour parties. The transfer of a single vote in Central Finsbury would have been sufficient to have produced an exact balance. It was the duty of the new Council to elect the aldermen, the block vote being used. The majority of two was sufficient to enable the Municipal Reformers to carry the election of every one of the ten candidates nominated by them, thus depriving the minority of any voice in the election of aldermen. The object for which aldermen were instituted was entirely set at naught, and this the method of election alone made possible. The privilege of selecting aldermen was used by the party in power, not for the purpose of strengthening the Council by the addition of representative men, but for the purpose of strengthening the party position.[15] The privilege has been abused in a similar way by the English provincial boroughs. In these boroughs, prior to the Election of Aldermen Act, 1910, aldermen as well as councillors took part in the election of aldermen. In some cases a party having once obtained a predominant position has, by making full use of its power to elect aldermen in sympathy with itself, succeeded in perpetuating its predominance, although defeated at the polls. The minority of the councillors, with the assistance of the non-retiring aldermen, has not only elected further aldermen from members of the same party, but has controlled the policy of the Council. The Act referred to merely prevents aldermen in municipal councils from voting in the election of other aldermen, but does not go to the root of the evil. An alteration in the method of election is required.
[Sidenote 1: The election of Representative Peers of Scotland.]
A further example of the use of the block vote may be taken from the election of Scottish Representative Peers. At the commencement of each Parliament the Scottish Peers meet in Holyrood Palace for the purpose of electing sixteen of their number to represent the peerage of Scotland in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Unionist Peers are in a majority, and the block vote enables them to choose sixteen Unionist Peers. At the election of January 1910 Lord Torphichen, a Unionist Peer, who had voted against his party on the Finance Bill of the previous year, failed to secure re-election. Lord Torphichen was elected in the following December, but the incident shows how complete is the power conferred upon the majority by this method of election; not only political opponents but dissenting members of the same party can be excluded from representation.
The Australian Senate.
The block vote is used also in the election of members of the Australian Senate. Each State elects six senators, half of whom retire every three years. Each State is polled as a separate constituency, and each elector has three votes. At the election of 1910 the Labour Party polled the highest number of votes in each of the States, and thus succeeded in returning eighteen senators, all other parties obtaining none. The figures here given for the elections in Victoria and New South Wales show that in Victoria the successful candidates were not even supported by a majority of electors, and that in both States the excess of the successful over their leading opponents was so small that a slight turn over would have completely altered the result of the elections:—
ELECTION of AUSTRALIAN SENATORS, 1910
Victoria.