After such a mass of testimony as to the satisfactory working of proportional methods in parliamentary elections, it is perhaps hardly necessary to refer to the success of those model elections carried out from time to time by the Proportional Representation Society in England.[17] Yet it may be as well to recall the novel and entirely successful experiment, organized in 1885, by Mr. Albert Grey, M.P. (now Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada). "Mr. Grey," according to the account in The Times[18], "was returning officer, and was assisted in the count by thirty miners—a body of utterly untrained men whose hands, accustomed by daily usage to the contact of pickaxe and shovel, were new and strange to the somewhat delicate task of fingering and separating flimsy ballot papers. They had received no instructions before they were assembled in the room as to the duties they would be required to transact, and the expedition, good-humour, and correctness with which they got through the several stages of the count justly earned for them the admiration of those who had come from a distance, as well as the compliment which Mr. Grey deservedly paid them at the conclusion of the day's proceedings." On this occasion some 6645 papers were counted, the number of spoilt votes being 44, considerably less than 1 per cent. The election is of interest as the members of Northumberland Miners' Association have ever since that date used the transferable vote in the election of their agents.
To demonstrate the practicability of proportional representation does not, however, dispose of all of the objections which have been urged against the system, but before dealing with these objections it will perhaps be useful to outline those schemes which have emerged so successfully from the test of popular elections. These methods, although they vary in detail, range themselves under two heads—the single transferable vote and the system of lists. The first of these systems—the single transferable vote—bases representation upon electors who may, if they so desire, group themselves into parties, whereas the list systems base representation upon parties as such. And as the single transferable vote, in basing representation upon electors follows English traditions, we will begin with the consideration of this system.
[Footnote 1: The story of the introduction of proportional
representation into the Canton of Ticino is told in full by Professor
Galland in La Démocratie Tessinoise et la Représentation
Proportionnelle (Grenoble, 1909).]
[Footnote 2: The application was extended in 1892, 1895, and 1898 to the election of the Executive Council, of jurors and of Communal Councils. In 1904, however, when the Liberals were in a majority, a change was made in the election of the Executive Council. The proportional system, which had given them only three seats out of five, was replaced (for the election of Executive Councils) by the limited vote. Under the new system, which is less favourable to the minority, the Liberals obtained four out of five seats.]
[Footnote 3: Goblet d'Alviella, La Représentation Proportionnelle en
Belgique, p. 92.]
[Footnote 4: No. 2376, Chambre des Députés, Huitième Législature, 1905.]
[Footnote 5: No. 883, Chambre des Deputes, Neuvième Legislature, 1907.
(See App. X.)]
[Footnote 6: The Finnish Reform Bill of 1906. The new method of voting is described in Appendix IV.]
[Footnote 7: The Russian Duma has since passed a law (1910) by which the powers the Finnish Diet have been considerably curtailed.]
[Footnote 8: The Swedish system is described in Appendix III.]