Proportional Representation Applied to Party Government: A New Electoral System

by T. R. Ashworth; Henry Ashworth

The essential difference in the second stage is that every election is contested by two organized parties. The choice is now not of men only, but of measures and of men as well. It is a contest in the first place within each party as to who is best fitted to represent the party, and in the second place between the two parties for the support of the people. The party in a majority secures all the representation; the party in a minority none. Now, the minority is certainly not represented by the choice of the majority; on the contrary, its views are exactly the opposite. Hence the question arises: Is not this exclusion of the minority an injustice? Does it not amount to disfranchisement? The usual reply is either that the majority must rule or that the injustice done in some electorates is balanced in others, so that in the long run rough justice is obtained.

As to the first contention, it is the party which has the support of a majority of the whole people which should rule; and the excluded minority in some of the electorates belongs to this party. The second practically amounts to the statement that two wrongs make a right.

A practice prevails in the United States which will illustrate the position. Each State sends a number of representatives to Congress proportional to its population, and the division into electorates is left to the State. By manipulating the electoral boundaries the party which has a majority in each State is enabled to arrange that the injustice done to itself is a minimum, and that the injustice done to the opposing party is a maximum. By this iniquitous practice, which is known as the gerrymander, the party in a minority in each State is allowed to get only about one-half or one-quarter of its proper share of representation. But as the practice is universal in all the States, the injustice done to a party in some States is balanced in others. Will those who seek to excuse the injustice done to the minority in each electorate by the present system of election seriously contend that the same argument justifies the gerrymander?

The truth is that the present system has survived the passage from the first stage of representation into the second, not because it does justice to both parties, but because it has operated largely to prevent the formation of more than two parties. It has, therefore, been a means of giving effect to the central feature of representation, viz.: the organization of public opinion into two definite lines of policy. But it is a comparatively ineffective means, and it no longer suffices to prevent sectional delegation in any of the democracies we have examined. Besides, it is accompanied by a series of other evils, which in so far as they lead to the suppression of responsible leadership, tend to the degradation of public life. We propose now to consider the effect of the reform in remedying these defects of the present system.

Parties Not Represented in the Legislature in the Same Proportion as in the Country.—Representation under the present system is purely arbitrary; the amount which each party secures is a matter of chance. If a party with a majority in the whole country has a majority in each of the electorates it will secure all the representation. On the other hand, if it splits up its votes in each electorate, or even only in those electorates where it has a majority, it may secure none at all. Theoretically, then, any result is possible. The argument would lose its force, however, if in practice the result usually came out about right. But this seldom happens, and, speaking generally, two cases may be distinguished: first, when parties are nearly equal, the minority is almost as likely as the majority to return a majority of the representatives, thus defeating the principle of majority rule; and, second, when one party has a substantial majority, it generally sweeps the board and annihilates the minority. A few examples will illustrate these facts.

The 1895 election for the Imperial Parliament is analyzed by Sir John Lubbock in the Proportional Representation Review. He shows that out of 481 contested seats, the Liberals, with 1,800,000 votes were entitled to 242, and the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, with 1,775,000 to 239, a majority of three seats for the Liberals. But the Conservatives and Unionists actually returned 279, and the Liberals only 202, a majority of 77 seats. The Conservatives and Unionists obtained also a majority of 75 of the uncontested seats, giving them a total majority of 152, instead of the 72 to which they were entitled.

Recent elections for the United States Congress are shown by Professor Commons to present striking inequalities. At the election for the 51st Congress, 1888, the Republicans polled 5,348,379, and the Democrats 5,502,581. But the Republican minority actually secured 164 seats against 161, a majority of 3, and were enabled to carry the McKinley tariff law. For the 52nd Congress, 1890, the Republicans, with 4,217,266 votes, only elected 88, while the Democrats, with 4,974,450 votes, elected 235, and the Populists, with 354,217 votes, elected 9 Congressmen. The Democratic majority should have been only 2, instead of 138. Compared with the 51st Congress, their proportion of the popular vote increased only 1 per cent., but their proportion of the representatives increased 21 per cent. It required 47,923 votes to elect a Republican, 44,276 to elect a Populist, and only 21,078 to elect a Democrat.

To come nearer home, did not Mr. Reid return to power at the 1898 election in New South Wales although the Opposition polled a majority of 15,000 against him? The last election in Victoria illustrates nothing so much as the chaotic state of parties, brought about by newspaper influence in promoting false lines of division. No less than 30 seats, representing 81,857 votes, were contested only by candidates who professed to be Ministerialists of various shades. Of 52 seats contested by Ministerial and Opposition candidates, each party secured 26; but the Ministerialists paid 59,255 votes for their seats as against 44,327 cast for the Opposition. 13 seats were uncontested, 9 Ministerial and 4 Opposition, giving a total of 65 members to the Ministerial party and 30 members to the Opposition.

The arbitrary and haphazard character of these results is obvious. It would be entirely removed by the reform. Every election would reflect the true feeling of the country; the right of the majority to rule would be rendered certain, and the right of the minority to a fair hearing would be assured. Taking the country as a whole, the Ministerialists would pay almost exactly the same number of votes for each seat as the Opposition. In each separate electorate the accuracy would not be so great, but the rectification of even this slight and unavoidable inequality would, instead of being arbitrary, be subject to the laws of chance.

Ineffective Votes.—Under the present system, all votes cast for rejected candidates are ineffective; therefore nearly one-half of the electors have no voice in the Government. A Liberal elector may live in a Conservative constituency all his life without having the opportunity to cast an effective vote. The evil of popular indifference is largely to be explained by this fact. It is no answer to say that it affects both parties equally. The trouble is that nearly one-half of the electors of each party have no influence in deciding who are to represent the party, and therefore do not help to frame its policy.