ELECTORAL SYSTEMS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18753, 5 January 1923, Page 4

ELECTORAL SYSTEMS.

By way of supplementing the comments which, we made in an article on Wednesday concerning the British electoral system, ■ attention may be redirected to the fact that the principle of Proportional Representation is in operation in the election of parliamentary representatives of the Home Universities. The plan was first tried in 1918, and the committee of the f.R. Society in its report for 1918-19 remarked ; “The experiment was on so modest a scale that its lessons are usually undervalued. But these university elections gave results which bore a reasoned relation to the votes cast, and in this highly important respect they presented a great contrast to the results of the General Election taken as a whole. Further, they showed how P.R. makes it possible for minorities to secure their due . . . and showed,

moreover, how it safeguards the rights of majorities.” This double demonstration was again in evidence at the University contests in November last. It should bo stated that the use of the single transferable vote is the form of “P.R.” operating at’ these elections—the form approved by the P.R. Society, and, indeed, the only form applicable to the conditions of University voting. At Cambridge, with two representatives to be returned, there were three candidates —two Conservatives and an Independent Liberal. Under th© old system, which allowed each elector two votes, both the Coaservatives would have been returned. Indeed, this was the result even under the new system in 1918. Bht in November the working of the single transferable vote enabled the Liberal to take second place on the poll. In other words, the Conservative electors did not form a sufficiently largo majority for the transfer votes to secure the election of their second candidate. At Oxford, on the other hand, the Conservative majority of voters was large enough to achieve this result, and Professor Gilbert Murray was left at the bottom of the poll. Thus at Cambridge the rights of a substantial minority and at Oxford those of an overwhelming majority were safeguarded. If it be suggested that the 1594 Liberal voters at Oxford ought to be represented, the only answer is that this is impossible with only two members to be returned. It may be of interest to recall the somewhat analogous working of a special provision in Disraeli’s Reform Act of 1867, under which Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham each returned three members, but each elector was restricted to the oxerciso of two votes. The result was that the Liberal minority secured one of the three seats at Liverpool, and the Conservative minority were able to obtain a similar degree of representation at while at Birmingham the Liberals were so overwhelmingly preponderant that by careful arrangement and husbandry of votes —known as the “vote-as-you’re-told” system —they contrived to me nopoliso all

three seats. This form “P.R.,” as it virtually was, came to an end in 1884. In these,days “We are twelve” is the fraternal watchword of the Conservative representatives of once Radical Birmingham. One of the twelve divisions (Duddeston) went to Labour in 1918 by a majority of between six and seven thousand, but the Conservatives recaptured it in November by 4760 — a remarkable turnover.