Such is a brief review of the outlook. The great requisites essential for progress are the organization of two national parties and responsible leadership in the Federal Parliament. The dangers to the Commonwealth may be summed up under the two heads of lack of organization and irresponsible leadership outside Parliament. Is it possible that the dangers may be avoided and the requisites secured by a change in electoral machinery? Those who have no conception of the working of social forces, and who do not trace the law of causation into the realm of mind, will be inclined to scoff at the suggestion. To them the only hope of improvement lies in appealing to the people to elect better men. They ignore entirely the reciprocal relation of the Parliament and the people, and while recognizing the influence of the people on the character of Parliament, they deny the influence of Parliament on the character of the people. They declare that the people are "free agents" and will have better government when they make up their minds to get it; and no electoral machinery or parliamentary machinery can influence the result. Such is the passive attitude which consciously or unconsciously is almost universally assumed. Yet who can study the history of the British Constitution without being impressed with the fact that every step in the evolution of its machinery was a true sociological invention and had the effect of directing the people's will, which is the motive force, into channels conducive to the general welfare? Take away the responsible leadership of the Cabinet in the British Parliament, and it would become a sink of corruption like the United States Congress; take away its organization into two national parties, and it would become a rabble like the French Chambers. Now, is not the electoral machinery the connecting link between the people and Parliament, and therefore a vital part in the machinery of government? Does it not actually decide the constitution of Parliament? If this be granted, it follows that unless the electoral machinery be adapted to give effect to these two great principles, parliaments will inevitably decline; and that the present method of election is a very inadequate means of giving effect to them few will deny.
Our claim for the application of the electoral reform set forth in the preceding pages rests simply on the fact that it will give effect to these principles under conditions in which the present system would fail. We press especially for its application to the Federal House of Representatives, which will be the most important Australian representative assembly; for it it there that organization and responsible leadership are most urgently needed. That they will not be obtained if the present schemes of dividing the States into single-membered electorates are adopted is morally certain; and the result can only be disaster and bitter disappointment. If the mathematical devices described in the last chapter are added, the disorganization will be still more complete. And as for the scheme for allowing separate delegation to a number of sections, which is advocated under the name of the Hare system, it would be absolutely fatal. Who can believe that if Mr. Hare's wild scheme to divide the British people into several hundred sections had been adopted 40 years ago the Imperial Parliament would now be an organized assembly?
Take the conditions presented by the first elections for the Federal Parliament, to be held early next year. In some respects it is fortunate that a definite issue is available as a basis of party organization; for there is a general consensus of opinion that all other considerations must be subordinated to a pronouncement on the tariff issue. In an article on "The Liberal Outlook" in United Australia, the Hon. Alfred Deakin writes:—"By the very circumstances of the case the tariff issue cannot but dominate the first election, and determine the fate of the first ministry of the Commonwealth. There will be no time for second thoughts or for suspense of judgment. The first choice of the people will be final on this head. The first Parliament must be either Protectionist or anti-Protectionist, and its first great work an Australian tariff. That is the clear-cut issue. The risk is that a proportion of the representatives may be returned upon other grounds, as the electors as a whole may not realize all that is at stake or make the necessary sacrifices of opinions and preferences to express themselves emphatically on this point." Now, the only way to avoid the risk indicated is to take this one definite issue as the basis of proportional representation. Each State should be divided on it, and should elect its proportional number of Freetrade and Protectionist representatives. Tasmania and Western Australia could conveniently be polled for this purpose each as one electorate; South Australia might be divided into two electorates, Queensland into three, and Victoria and New South Wales into four or five.
It is very desirable that the first election be contested on definite policies advanced by the prospective party leaders; the suggestion that the first ministry should be merely a provisional ministry, to act till the first responsible ministry is formed after the election, is therefore open to serious objection. The leader of the Freetrade party or the leader of the Protectionist party should be chosen as first Federal Premier, and the first election should decide which policy is to be adopted.
Contrast this scheme with the proposals now under consideration. In Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland bills have been introduced dividing the States into single-membered electorates, and some of the smaller States are inclined to use the Block Vote. In Victoria a bad precedent has been established by giving the party in power the duty of determining boundaries. From time to time it will be necessary to rearrange the boundaries, not only on account of movements of population within the State, but also because the number of representatives which the State is entitled to will vary. Look forward to the time when the State becomes entitled to one more representative; every one of the 23 electorates, in which vested interests will have been created, will have to be altered These are precisely the conditions which have led to the growth of the gerrymander in the United States.
Already the first scheme submitted to the Assembly has been defeated by a combination of country members, who held that Melbourne was allotted a larger share of representation than it now has in the local Parliament. Whatever may be the arguments by which the disparity between the size of town and country electorates be supported in local affairs, surely they cannot apply where national issues only are at stake. The principle of equal electorates is recognized in the Commonwealth Bill by the rules for allotting representation to the States. Why not, then, for the divisions of each State? It is said that a larger proportion of the electors vote in the town, but it is not those only who vote who are represented.
In dividing a State into electorates for the purpose of the reform, the number of electors in each division should therefore form the basis of proportional distribution. The unit of representation would be the total number of electors in the State divided by the number of seats. One representative would be allowed to each division of the State for each unit of representation, and the remaining seats, if any, would go to those divisions with the largest remainders.
Coming now to the Federal Senate, the bill provides that every State, except Queensland, must be polled as one electorate for the election of six senators at the first election and in case of a double dissolution; at intermediate elections three senators only will be elected, as they retire in rotation. This equal representation of the States might be taken to imply that the Senate is intended to represent State rights, and the provision that each State is to be polled as one electorate would seem to support that view. On the other hand, the senators are not required to vote according to States, for it is provided that "each senator shall have one vote;" the vote of a State may therefore be neutralized by its representatives. And again, the Senate is to be elected directly by the people and not by the State legislatures, as at first proposed. To some extent, therefore, the Federal Senate as now constituted presents a new problem in representation, on which it is not advisable to dogmatize. Personal considerations will probably have more weight than in the selection of representatives; but when we reflect that it is really little more than a revising assembly, elected by the same voters as the House of Representatives to deal with the same questions, and having no special functions of its own, the conclusion seems irresistible that the election must be contested by the same national parties, and that the same method of election should be adopted.
Until the Parliament of the Commonwealth prescribes a uniform method of choosing senators, the duty is to be left to the State parliaments; and it is to be regretted that the States have taken no steps to secure uniform action at the first election. In Victoria a fierce newspaper contest is being waged over the Block Vote and the Hare system, and the arguments, being mutually destructive, only go to prove that both are equally objectionable. The Age naturally wishes to have the privilege of electing six senators as it did ten delegates to the Federal Convention, and contends that the majority should elect all the senators; the Argus rushes to the other extreme in declaring that six separate minorities ought to be represented, and ignores the risk that these minorities would be formed on a class or religious basis. The middle position advocated in this book—namely, that majority and minority should each return its proportional share of representation—is free from the objections to both these extreme views.
State Legislatures.—Even after federation the State Houses will still continue to touch at most points the daily lives of the people; they will merely be shorn of some of their powers and drained of some of their best leaders. The fiscal issue, which has had great influence in deciding party lines in the past, will be removed from the arena of strife, leaving no other than an indefinite line of division into Liberals and Conservatives, which in practice tends to become a division into lower and upper classes. This is the danger ahead; and it can only be avoided by the formation of strong party organizations appealing to all classes to work together for the general welfare. Party government is just as necessary in State politics as in national politics.