Evening Post.

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 120, 25 May 1925, Page 4

Evening Post.

MONDAY, MAY 25, 1925.

MAJORITY OR MINORITY

RULE

In an interview at Gisborne which is reported to-day, Dr. W. A. Chappie, who is described in the Press Association's message as an ex-M.P. for Dumfriesshire, but has an additional claim to attention in this country as ex-M.P. for Tuapeka, discusses one of the most fundamental of the unsettled problems of democracy. The prospect of a three-cornered contest in the Franklin electorate and of a campaign of the same kind at the General Election supplied the text of Dr. Chappie's remarks. The basis of democracy is, as he says, majority, rule, but in no constituency in which there are more than two candidates is the majority sure of representation under the existing system. Even when there were only two parties a multiplicity of candidates always resulted in the misrepresentation of a certain proportion of the constituencies at; every General Election by the return of minority candidates. But as in the long run these chances tended to balance one another, the net result was not nearly so misrepresentative of the whole country as it is to-day, when the competition of three fairly wellbalanced .parties ensures a multiplicity of candidates in a majority of the constituencies.

The combination of three parties, single-member electorates, and the "first past, the .post,"- system seems indeed to make misrepresentation of the country the normal state of things* We are not referring to the mere fact that the representation is inexact in respect of quantum. Under the best of conditions the "first past the post" system has tended to exaggerate the swing of the pendulum and to give the winning side a victory put of proportion to its numbers. It has been argued that this exaggeration, though theoretically unjustifiable, is practically beneficial, since by giving the victorious party a working majority, and the moral weight arising from the appearance of having done much better than they really did, it supplies the Government with both the machinery and the atmosphere necessary for the discharge of its duties. If the electors were divided in the proportion of 51 to 49, would not a rough-and-ready system which divided the representation in the proportion, say, of 55 to 45, give better practical results than a scientific system which precisely reflected the indecision of the constituencies in the House? Such is the argument which was plausibly urged against proportional representation, and the fact that while there were only two parties tho present system rarely left one of them without a working majority was certainly something very much in its favour.

The logic of this argument from convenience was pushed very much further by that extraordinary electoral law proposal of Siguor Mussolini's under which the votes of each party were aggregated and the winning party was given two-thirds of the seats. No British community would ever think of adopting such a law, yet Britain herself, and most of her daughters are tolerating a system which is really more absurd thanthis.. The law which gave the Fascists such a sweeping majority at the last General Election in Italy at least insisted that they should have a majority before proceeding to enlarge it. What should we have said if it had extended this privilege to one of the minority parties, or made any provision at all for the carrying on of the Government by any such party? Yet a system wtiich makes the victory of a minority party not merely possible but probable, and may even provide it with a substantial majority in Parliament, is tolerated in Mil parts of the British Empire. .Britain supplies the best examples owing fco her three General Elections in thvee successive years. In 1922 the British electors were supposed to have voted emphatically for the tranquillity and stability which was the watch-word of Mr. .Roviar Law, but his majority of <!> in. Hie House of Commons re-vrr-wnteO a niiiinrily of about -10 per, uisnt, a.|, |h e pyjjs, 'jckiit ejmsU*

ing defeat of the Conservatives iv the following year was supposed to be the result of Mr. Baldwin's having committed them to Protection, but if he had been as lucky as Mr. Bonar Law his party might have won again. Finally, when the party did win again last year, the victory was once more out of all proportion to the votes that it received. Under the present system the toss seems to play as large a part in these election tests as it has recently played in Test cricket. .Well may Lord Oxford describe a system which makes a General Election a sort of prize lottery as " grotesque." It would have been better still if, while he had the power, he had done something to improve it. But the trouble is that no politician seems to find these fluky methods intolerable until they have fluked him out of power. The Eeform leader who is to be elected on Wednesday will have an excellent chance of providing an exception to this rule. The remedy proposed by Dr. Chappie is the alternative or preferential system which, though not. promising a fundamental cure, should prove a valuable corrective. In this country it has the special advantage of avoiding any complication with the country quota.

A reform which would even mitigate evils substantially would give the whole Empire a lead, and a mitigating measure would doubtless be more readily followed than one that went the full length of proportional representation.