"You would," he said, "have as a consequence a revival of life and spirit where there is now listlessness, and intelligent interest in the national conduct where there. is now apathy or repugnance."

It is indeed admitted on all hands that under the old system the country has not been satisfactorily represented, but it is generally supposed that this has been due to the unequal size of constituencies, and to the restriction on the right of voting in counties. Let us then consider what the effect would be in a country with a wide franchise, single seats, and equal, or approximately equal, electoral districts.

The effect of the single member system will depend very much on whether the electors belonging to the great parties in the State are uniformly distributed or not. In the former case it is obvious, as I have already pointed out (ante, p. 5), that the minority will be everywhere excluded, and the majority will secure all the seats.

But now, let us suppose that the electors belonging to the two great parties are not uniformly distributed. throughout the constituencies; but that those of one party are more or less concentrated in particular districts the Liberals, for instance, in great cities. In this case it is obvious that their electoral strength would be to a great extent wasted.

Apart, then, from any other collateral, though important, disadvantages-such as the temptation to unfairness in the determination of boundaries, the necessity for con

tinual changes in the electoral areas, the separation of the parliamentary area from the municipal, the limitation in the choice of the elector, the increased. efforts which the representative must make in order to retain his seat, the greater temptation to bribery, the consequent tendency of eminent men to withdraw from political life, &c.—the system of single seats will but seldom give a fair representation of the electorate. If the minority is small, as for instance in Scotland and Wales, say one-third or one-quarter of the whole, it will be almost annihilated. If the minority is large, the two great parties being nearly equal, then the result will depend on the manner in which the voters are distributed; if the electors belonging to the two parties are evenly diffused, then, as in the preceding case, the minority will be almost obliterated; while, on the other hand, if the electors of the majority are much concentrated, as it is likely the Liberals may be in large cities, then the minority may obtain more than their share of power, or even secure a majority of the representatives.

CHAPTER III.

SCRUTIN DE LISTE.

We now turn to the system known as "Scrutin de Liste," or "General Ticket," under which each constituency returns several members, and every elector has a number of votes equal to the number of members to be returned, but can only give one vote to any one candidate.

Assume a constituency which returns seven members. The two great parties may be very evenly balanced, but whichever had the majority, however small, would return the whole of the seven representatives. If Liverpool, for instance, contained 31,000 Conservative electors and 30,000 Liberals, under this system the 31,000 electors would have seven members while the 30,000 would have none at all.

But then it is often said, that any other system would, under such circumstances, reduce a great city to the level of a town returning a single member. But that is only because parties are evenly balanced there. If onethird of the voters are Conservatives, why should they not have one-third of the members? Why should twothirds of the constituency monopolize the whole of the

representatives? Liverpool will have nine members because it has 63,000 electors, of whom perhaps 30,000 may be Liberals, 30,000 Conservatives, 2000 Irish Homerulers, and 1000 without distinctive political opinions ; and I do not understand how any one can really wish that these last 3000 should practically return all the members. We know that they often vote for the Conservatives, and the result would be that 30,000 Liberals would be unrepresented. But if it were not for the 30,000 Liberals, Liverpool would have had only four members. It comes, therefore, to this: that because there are 30,000 Liberals in Liverpool, the Conservatives are given twice as many members as they would otherwise have had. If it is said that any proportional system is objectionable because it might reduce the voting power of Liverpool on balance to a single vote, then we may ask, How far is this principle to be carried? In Lancashire, at the last general election, the Conservatives polled 38,000 votes, the Liberals 36,000, and the members are four to four. This seems as it should be. The votes are nearly equal, and the members are equal. But can it be said that Lancashire is unrepresented? Would any one propose that the 36,000 Conservative electors should have returned the whole eight members, and the 34,000 Liberals none at all? Yet this is what would come about under the system of Scrutin de Liste.

A striking instance of the results given by this system was afforded by the recent elections in Belgium. The Chamber is elected in sections, and in June, 1874,

According to their just proportion, the Anti-Ministerialists ought to have carried 30 seats out of the 52, but they actually secured all but two.

This election took place in June. In the following month the same constituencies had to elect representatives in the Senate. Warned by their recent defeat, the Ministerialists exerted themselves to the utmost, and polled 6000 more votes. This increase, small as it was, turned the scale, and this time they secured 19 seats out

of 31.