AN OBJECT LESSON.

Evening Star, Issue 10705, 18 August 1898, Page 1

AN OBJECT LESSON.

The following letter is published in the «Sydney Morning Herald' of July 26 : Sir,—No one can look at the election results published in your issue of this morning without feeling how grossly imperfect are the present methods of representation, and how much we need some system of proportional representation. Of the many reforms which the Hare system effects, there are sevaral, the necessity for which has been glaringly displayed in the present election. The first of these is fairness of representation. Your issue reports the following approximate figures for Sydney and suburbs : Electors. Representatives. Ministerialists ... 33,000 ... 29 Non-Ministerialists 29,000 ... 10

No one need be told that there is great unfairness here. Instead of representatives being 29 and 10. they should have been 21 and 18. Further, the Hare system secures a representation of minorities. How inadequately this was done in the present election may be inferred from the single case of the King Division. For whom did the local option party vote 1 It might be answered that the local option party made it up bv securine representatives in other constituencies. But experience proves clearly enough that this is not often adequately done. In any case it is not desirable to virtually disfranchise local optiomsts of the King Division. . Again, the Hare syßtem tends to increase the popular interest. By enlarging the constituencies ana increasing the number of candidates, the system offers to every elector a reasonable chance of finding some candidate who combines the various qualities which are necessary to arouse his enthusiasm. How many electors in the .present election refrained from voting, or voted in halfhearted fashion, because, e.g., the federalist candidate was also a protectionist or a local optionist or something else equally undesirable ? Once again, the Hare system must tend to improve the character of the Legislature. What tends to make electors indifferent tends also to make good candidates chary of entering the political arena. In large constituencies, and under the Hare system, a candidate can boldly affirm his opinions without trimming. At present, in the single-membered constituency, the candidate has to combine isolated groups of electors of perhaps opposite views and interests. This means astute compromise, trimming, and, in general, " the wi6dom which is of this world." Democracy is not to b« saved by improvements of its machinery. As Bagehot aptly remarks, you cannot get more virtue out of a country than there is in it, and it is virtue alone which can save democracy. But in spite of this admission machinery can do much. It is for this reason that I have ventured to trouble you with the Hare system.—l am, etc., W, Jethro Brown.