John H. Humphreys - Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

First Published in 1911

I believe this book will generally be welcomed as opportune. Proportional Representation has made very rapid, almost startling advances in recent years. In one shape or another it has been adopted in many countries in Northern Europe, and there is a prospect of a most important extension of this adoption in the reform of the parliamentary institutions of France. Among ourselves, every political writer and speaker have got some inkling of the central principle of proportional representation, and not a few feel, sometimes with reluctance, that it has come to stay, that it will indeed be worked into our own system when the inevitable moment arrives for taking up again the reform of the House of Commons. They know and confess so much among themselves, but they want to be familiarized with the best machinery for working proportional representation, and they would not be sorry to have the arguments for and against its principles once more clearly examined so that they may be properly equipped for the reception of the coming change. This little book of Mr. Humphreys is just what they desire. The author has no doubt about his conclusions, but he goes fairly and with quite sufficient fulness through the main branches of the controversy over proportional representation, and he explains the working of an election under the system we must now regard as the one most likely to be adopted among us. His qualifications for his work are indeed rare, and his authority in a corresponding measure high. A convinced adherent of proportional representation, he stimulated the revival of the Society established to promote it. He was the chief organizer of the enlarged illustrative elections we have had at home. He has attended elections in Belgium and again in Sweden, and when the time came for electing Senators in the colonies of South Africa, and Municipal Councils in Johannesburg and Pretoria, the local governments solicited his assistance in conducting them, and put on record their obligations for his help. The reader can have no better guide in argument, no more experienced hand in the explanation of machinery, and if I add that Mr. Humphreys has done his work with complete mastery of his subject and with conspicuous clearness of exposition, I need say no more in recommendation of his book.

It may be objected that the Royal Commission which issued its Report last spring, did not recommend the incorporation of proportional representation into our electoral system. This is most true. One member indeed (Lord Lochee) did not shrink from this conclusion, but his colleagues were unable to report that a case had been made out for the adoption "here and now" of proportional representation. Their hesitancy and the reasons they advanced as justifying it must lead many to a conclusion opposite to their own. They themselves are indeed emphatic in pressing the limitation "here and now" as qualifying their verdict. They wish it to be most distinctly understood that they have no irresistible objection to proportional representation. They indeed openly confess that conditions may arise among ourselves at some future time which would appear to be not necessarily distant, when the balance of expediency may turn in favour of its adoption. They suggest "that some need may become felt which can only be satisfied by proportional representation in some form or another," and I do not think I misrepresent their attitude in believing that a very small change of circumstances might suffice to precipitate a reversal of their present conclusion. All who are familiar with the conduct of political controversies must recognize the situation thus revealed. Again and again have proposals of reform been made which the wise could not recommend for acceptance "here and now." They are seen to be good for other folk; they fit into the circumstances of other societies; they may have worked well in climates different from our own; nay, among ourselves they might be tried in some auxiliary fashion separated from the great use for which they have been recommended, but we will wait for the proper moment of their undisguised general acceptance. It is in this way that political ideas have been propagated, and it would be a mistake if we were hastily to condemn what are sure and trusty lines of progress. When the Royal Commissioners, after all their hesitations about the intrusion of proportional representation even in the thinnest of wedges into the House of Commons, go on to say that "there would be much to be said in its favour as a method for the constitution of an elected Second Chamber," and again, though admitting that this was beyond their reference, express a pretty transparent wish that it might be tried in municipal elections, the friends of the principle may well be content with the line which the tide of opinion has reached. The concluding words of this branch of the Report are scarcely necessary for their satisfaction: "We need only add, that should it be decided at any time to introduce proportional representation here for political elections the change would be facilitated if experience had been gained in municipal elections alike by electors and officials."

A few words may be permitted in reference to the line of defence advanced by the Commissioners against the inroad of proportional representation. Mr. Humphreys has dealt with this with sufficient fullness in Chapters X and XI which deal with objections to proportional representation; and I refer the reader to what he has written on the general subject. My own comment on the position of the Commissioners must be short. Briefly stated, their position is that proportional representation "cannot be recommended in a political election where the question which party is to govern the country plays a predominant part," and, as elsewhere they put it, "a general election is in fact considered by a large portion of the electorate of this country as practically a referendum on the question which of two governments shall be returned to power." The first remark to be made upon this wonderful barrier is that a general election avowedly cannot be trusted as a true referendum. It produces a balance of members in favour of one party, though even this may fail to be realized at no distant future, but the balance of members may be and has been under our present system in contradiction to the balance of the electors; or in other words, a referendum would answer the vital question which party is to govern, in the opposite sense to the answer given by a general election. This is so frankly admitted in the Report that it is difficult to understand how the Commissioners can recommend adherence to a process which they have proved to be a delusion. Even on the bare question of ascertaining what government the nation desires to see installed at Westminster, the present method is found wanting, whilst the reformed plan, by giving us a reproduction in miniature of the divisions of national opinion, would in the balance of judgment of the microcosm give us the balance of judgment in the nation. If a referendum is really wanted, a general election with single-member constituencies does not give us a secure result, and an election under proportional representation would ensure it. A different question obviously disturbs many minds, to wit, the stability of a government resting on the support of a truly representative assembly. Here again it may be asked whether our present machinery really satisfies conditions of stable equilibrium. We know they are wanting, and with the development of groups among us, they will be found still more wanting. The groups which emerge under existing processes are uncertain in shape, in size, and in their combinations, and governments resting upon them are infirm even when they appear to be strong. It is only when the groups in the legislature represent in faithful proportion bodies of convinced adherents returning them as their representatives that such groups become strong enough to restore parliamentary efficiency and to combine in the maintenance of a stable administration. It may require a little exercise of political imagination to realize how the transformed House of Commons would work, and to many the demonstration will only come through a new experience to which they will be driven through the failure of the existing apparatus. Meanwhile it may be suggested to doubters whether their anxiety respecting the possible working of a reformed House of Commons is not at bottom a distrust of freedom. They are afraid of a House of chartered liberties, whereas they would find the best security for stable and ordered progress in the self-adjustment of an assembly which would be a nation in miniature.