The object of the second ballot—to ensure that every elected candidate should finally have obtained the support of a majority of the electors voting in the constituency for which he has been returned—has, generally speaking, been achieved. But that does not solve the problem of the representation of three parties; a general election based on such a system yields results which are far from satisfactory. The party which is unsuccessful in one constituency may suffer the same fate in the majority of the constituencies, and this is the fatal flaw in all forms of the second ballot. Moreover experience has shown, and it is evident a priori, that with this system the representation of any section of political opinion depends not upon the number of its supporters, but very largely upon the attitude taken towards it by other parties. For, at a second ballot, the result is determined by the action of those smaller minorities which were at the bottom of the poll at the first ballot. No party can be certain of securing representation unless in its own strength it can obtain an absolute majority in at least some of the constituencies. The largest party in the State, if its voting strength is evenly distributed, may be at the mercy of hostile combinations at the second ballots, unless it is so large as to command a majority of votes throughout the country, and when three parties have entered the political arena it rarely happens that any one of them is in this favourable position. That being so, the new element of uncertainty associated with the system of second ballots may yield results which are further removed from the true representation of the whole electorate than the results of the first ballots.

Experience in Germany.

Continental experience has shown that the coalitions at the second ballots are of two types. One party may incur the hostility of all other parties, and if so, the second ballots will tend uniformly to the suppression of that party. The combination of parties whose aims and purposes are to some degree allied may be regarded as legitimate, but the cumulative effect of such combinations over a large area is most unfair to the party adversely affected. No defence at all can be urged in palliation of the evils of certain other coalitions also characteristic of second ballots—the coalitions of extreme and opposed parties which temporarily combine for the purpose of wrecking a third party in the hope of snatching some advantage from the resulting political situation. Sometimes such coalitions are merely the expression of resentment by an advanced party at the action of a party somewhat less advanced than itself. But, whatever the cause, the coalitions at the second ballots do not result in the creation of a fully representative legislative chamber; on the contrary, they tend to take away all sincerity from the parliamentary system. Illustrations of the first type of coalitions abound. The German general elections afford numerous examples, but as a special note on the working of the second ballots in Germany is to be found in Appendix II., it will suffice to quote some of the results of the election of 1907. The Social Democrats were engaged at the second ballots in ninety constituencies. At the first ballots they were at the head of the poll in forty-four of these constituencies, but at the second ballots they only succeeded in retaining that position in eleven. In the forty-six constituencies in which they were second at the poll they were only able to improve their condition in three cases. These figures show how the German Social Democrats suffered from hostile combinations. It was with the utmost difficulty that they obtained representation in constituencies other than those in which at the first elections they were in an absolute majority. No wonder that one of the planks of the platform of the Social Democratic party is proportional representation.

Austria.

The Social Democrats of Austria suffered in the General Election of 1907 in the same way. Professor Kedlich,[1] in an article entitled "The Working of Universal Suffrage in Austria," wrote as follows: "The Christian Socialists have ninety-six seats in the new House, the Social Democrats eighty-six … The number of seats won by them weighs still heavier in the balance when we reflect that in many second ballots the majority of the opponents of social democracy joined their forces against them. Not less instructive are the relative numbers of the votes recorded for each of the parties. Over a million votes were given to the Social Democrats as against 531,000 for the Christian Socialists." Such results destroy the representative character of legislative bodies. The same lesson on a smaller scale is to be gathered from the Italian elections. Speaking of the General Election of 1904, the Rome correspondent of The Morning Post pointed out that, in not a few constituencies, like the second division of Rome, a rally of Clericals at the second ballots enabled the Conservative Monarchists to triumph over the Socialists.

Belgium.

The combinations of allied parties against a third party, as in the examples already given, may be defended, but the coalitions at second ballots, as has been pointed out, are not always of this character. Should parties, angered and embittered by being deprived of representation, use their power at the second ballots to render a stable Government impossible, then the results are disastrous. Such were the conditions which obtained in Belgium before the abandonment of second ballots. "The system," says Sir Arthur Hardinge, "answered well enough so long as only two parties contested an election; but the moment the Socialist Party formed a distinct third party, after the establishment of universal suffrage in 1894, it began to act in a manner which produced unsatisfactory results…. The overwhelming victory of the Clerical party in 1894 was largely due to the fact that in every second ballot between Catholics and Socialists the Liberals voted for the former, whilst in every second ballot between Catholics and Liberals, with the single exception of the Thuin Division, the Socialists preferred the Catholics as the creators of universal suffrage and as, in some respects, a more genuinely democratic party, to the Liberals, whom the Labour leaders regarded with peculiar hatred as the apostles of free competition and individualism. In 1896 the Socialists were in their turn the victims, as the Liberals had been in 1894, of the working of the system of second ballots. Liberal electors at these elections voted everywhere at the second ballots for Clerical against Labour candidates, with the result that the Clericals won every one of the eighteen seats for Brussels, although the total number of Clerical electors in a total electorate of 202,000 was only 89,000, as against 40,000 Liberals and 73,000 ultra-Radicals and Labour men. Two years later the Liberals swung round to an alliance with the Socialists against the Clericals, and in several constituencies, owing to the system of second ballots, the Socialists, although actually in a minority, won all the seats with the help of the Liberals, who on the first ballot had voted unsuccessfully for Liberal as against both Catholic and Labour candidates. It was the practical experience of conditions such as these which gradually convinced all the Belgian parties that, given a three-cornered fight in every, or nearly every, constituency, the only way of preventing a minority from turning the scales and excluding from all representation the views of nearly half the electorate was to adopt the system of proportional representation."[2]

Count Goblet d'Alviella furnishes an excellent example of the working of the second ballots at Verviers in the General Election of 1898, the last parliamentary election in Belgium, at which second ballots were used. In the election for Senators the Socialists spoiled the chances of the Liberals by voting for the Clericals, whilst, in the election for the Chamber, the Liberals, not to be outdone, spoiled the chances of the Socialists by also supporting the Clericals. The Clericals thus obtained all the seats both in the Senate and in the Chamber with the assistance of the Socialists and of the Liberals in turn. The absurdities of the General Election of 1898 were so flagrant that on the day after the election so determined an opponent of proportional representation as La Chronique exclaimed, "Can anything be more absurd than the working of the second ballots in this country? … What becomes of the moral force of an election in which parties are obliged, if they wish to win, to implore the support of electors who yesterday were their enemies? Such support is never obtained without conditions, and these conditions are either promises which it is not intended to keep or a surrender of principles—in either case a proceeding utterly immoral."[3]

France.]

French elections also furnish examples of the use of the second ballots for the purpose of fostering dissension between opponents. At the General Election in 1906 it was stated that the Conservatives in the South of France, despairing of obtaining representation themselves, intended to support the Socialists at the second ballot in the hope of obtaining an advantage by accentuating the difference between the Socialists and the Radicals. M. Jaurès indignantly denied that there was any understanding between the Socialists and the Conservatives, and took advantage of the accusation to write in L'Humanité a powerful plea for proportional representation. "This reform," he declared, "would make such unnatural alliances impossible. Each party would be induced and, indeed, it would be to each party's advantage to fight its own battle, for every group would have an opportunity of obtaining its full share of representation. There would no longer be any question of doubtful manoeuvres, of confused issues; Socialism would have its advocates, Radicalism its exponents, Conservatism its leaders, and there would be a magnificent propaganda of principles which would inevitably result in the political education of the electorate. Every movement would be assured of representation in proportion to its real strength in the country; every party, freed from the necessity of entering into alliances which invariably beget suspicion, would be able to formulate quite clearly its essential principles; governmental and administrative corruption would be reduced to a minimum; the real wishes of the people would find expression; and if parties still continued to dispute for power, it would be to enable them to promote the more effectually the measures for which they stood." In spite, however, of this eloquent disclaimer on the part of M. Jaurès, the Conservatives have at the bye-elections continued their policy of supporting the Socialists. The bye election of Charolles in December 1908 is a case in point. At the first ballot the figures were as follows:—