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ELECTORAL SYSTEMS jj
Some Aspects Discussed
Methods of Representation
Address at Rotary Club
Luncheon
That there.are 250,000,000 people.in dif-
ferent part« ol the world/using; the elec-
toral system -which, prevails in Tasmania
was the statement made by Rotarian'W.
F. Dennis Butler during the course of his
address on "Some Aspects of Electoral
Systems" at the Rotary Club luncheon at
the Imperial yesterday. Rotarian G. L.
Burgoyne was the chairman for the day,
and the visitors present included Hon. A.
Wordlaw, M.L.C., Messrs. N. P. Booth
(oodbury-Fry-Pascall Ltd.). W. Stephen
son (Ford Motor Co., Geelong), E. Wen-
gen, and C. H. Olney.
Rotarian Butler said the question os to
why we have an electoral system at all
reminded him of the story he had heard
m English judge tell. Thc judge was
walking through n park with his tipstaff,
when he observed a crowd of small boys
talking excitedly. They were engaged in
the formation of a cricket club amongst
themselves. His tipstaff proceeded to move
the boys away, but (.he judge stopped him,
saying he was engaged in the study of how
thc common law of England was made.
That common law of England really origi-
nated from gatherings of the people, just
as those boys had gathered lo decide the
formation of - a- cricket club. A reference
to ancient history showed thnt the Greek
democracies had a similar system, thc
whole of tho electors meeting together ¡to
form tho different rules. It was found'in
England as far back as 1254. and was real-
ly the germ Of- thd present electoral sys-
tem. Two. knights were called from each
centre, to.represent'tho freemen in those
centres. Fronv there' it developed in Eng-
land, v,unt'l it' became .the recognised
method for election to the House of Com-
mons, which was the representative body
of the nation'as1 opposed to the House
of Lords, where the parties, and members j
attended personally and 6ave their votes.
The House of Commons was considerably
onlargcd from time to time until: it could
not be said to be a fairly representative
system owing'to changes in' the size of
the boroughs. In 1053 Cromwell made an
attempt to amend thc. electoral system.
Large towns' like' Manchester, .Leeds, and
Halifax were; quito unrepresented. In
1653 Cromwell passed n bili franchising
those towns and disfranchising many small
boroughs. Unfortunately, that reform got
mixed up with the general system, and
when there came a change-over afterwards
the reform was lost sight of. Eventually
tho p'rihcinlc was evolved that the House
of Commons must render an account to
its electors nt. regular periods. That left
the, main reform nttcmDtcd ,by Cromwell
still untouched, and ' in"1832 too great rc
form'took place, when some'boroughs were
abolished, and England was divided into
more or-loss equally distributed districts.
Tho question then was that the House of
Commons should be elected by the people,
so that it should be truly an elective house
and not merely a nominated house of
favoured individuals as it had previously
been. Disraeli, discussing that reform, bad
said it would be well to consider the dan-
ger of bavins: an election without repre-
sentation. There were subsequently vari
ous reforms in tho electoral system.
BEAL OBJECT AIMED AT.
The question arose, said Rotarian But
1er, ns to what was tho real object, thal
should bc aimed at in a representative as
sembly. It seemed that that had beet
clearly stated by Professor Masaryl
(Czccno-Slovakia). The rirofesaor had said
"Parliamentary representation should bi
of that kind so as to answer to the .actua
conditions of political tendencies anc
parties within the State, becausO it wa¡
practically impossible for all to gather a
one place at the same time to send tbei
representatives. : Legislative bodies are b
the nation what the map is to ita coun
try." His ideal was thBt a rcprcsentativ
assembly should contain within its limit
thc same different colour and difieren
opinions as occurred in the larger bod;
which it represented, the idea being tba
the representative assembly should carr
ont the duty that fell to the group c
small'boys forming the cricket club, sm
the mass of information would bo s
moulded that the laws made would he sui!
cd to the general condition of the coun
try. That was a really true ideal of
representative assembly, and ns such i
appealed especially to Continental people!
He doubted whether it appealed to th
Anglo-Saxon. Wc had never followed ov
any ideal to its logical conclusion. In
leading article in The Mercury" recen
ly it WBB stated that if one followed oi
the nroportional system to its logical coi
chi I m. and'got one very large electorat
the result would be that the inembel
would bc out of touch with many par
of thc electorate. That, seemed a concl
sive answer to tho illogicalness of havir
one electorate for the whole country i
working out true representation. In Ta
mania they had adopted the Hare-Clai
system, which'struck n medium. They ht
increased their areas to try to get them i
to such a size that they were not unwor
able. He did not consider tho local sy
tem of proportional representation suitab
for thc British Empire.
DIFFERENT ELECTION SYSTEMS.
From that point, said Rotarian Butle
they came to the consideration of the d
forent systems of election. The first sj
tem was .where they had a large electoral
ns in Tasmania, Hobart and Launcesti
being ona electorate, and each returni
a certain numbor of members. If s
members were to be returned, for 1
stance, every .voter had six vote*. Th
system possibly had the greatest d:
advantages of any. from tho point
view of fair representation. They h
thc result that any one party by pi
ting up six candidates and voting i
them could got tho whola six elect'
and tho rest were left unreprescnti
For thc 1910 Senate election the Co
monwealtb adopted the system. Th<
were then in the Commonwealth t
nearly even parties. The votes ci
totalled 4,018,000. The Labour pal
polled 2,021,000 votes, and the- ni
Labour party. 1,007,000. There were i
constituonces, and - three members
each constituency to be elected. T
result was that the 2,021,000 elected
members, and the 1,997,000 elected
members. That House could not be si
to be representative of tho electo
The next attempt was the single me
ber representative systemr where
electorate was divided into a nomi
of districts, each returning one me
ber. If the whole of the thought coi
be divided into tn« points of view, a
they never varied, they might be a!
to get a rough approximation by tl
method, but in practice that seid
torato system bad been found to
totally Incorrect. He" quoted an el
tion in New South Wales at the ti
when Federation was tho burning qu
occurred. The result of tho single cl
tion, and it had lust been turned do
in that State because the "Yeses" 1
not reached the required majori
Barton was the leader of the Fed«
lats, and ho went.to tho country agai:
Reid on thc question of Federatl
The Bartonites got a majority of vo
when all the constituencies were ]
forward. When the numbers came
be counted the Reidites had tho r
jority of members, although they w
in a minority." Tbot had occurred mi
times. In the election of the 51st C
gre s s in the United States the '.
publicans got 53,400,000 votes, and
Democrats 55,000,000, yet (he Rep
Heans had 164' seats and the Dei
crats 101, so that the leading party 1
a minority of members under the sin
electorate system." The single e
to ra te system was liable to anot
difficulty-the personal difficulty. I
sibly two good men would put up
one electorate, and people would '.
to have both elected. One had to st
down, and inferiors were elected
other electorates. Under the air
electorate system Sir Elliott Le
had been turned down for two sue
sive terms, while when the opinion
the electors as a whole had been
pressed for the next two. terms ha
been 'elected at the top ot the J
Winston Churchill had also been ti
ed down in a similar way. It m<
that th* best brains of the com
could net be utilised. Many atten
h-"? been made to overcome those t
enltias,
FAIRER REPRESENTATION SOTJG
The cumulative voting system i
the place of the multi-member i
torete, and in place of giwlng i
elector the sam* number of votei
there were members to be elected
waa (ivan . smaller number. If tl
-oembers ware to ko elected, hst
given two votes. He thought that
was In operation in Portugal. That en-
sured that a minority by concentrat-
ing contd get one member elected. It
was easy to defeat the object by putting
up numbers of members, and they had
the same difficulties as in thc multi
member system. Another method of
cumulative 'voting was that an elector
was allowed to give all his votes to
one candidate, and so ensure that ho
would be elected. That was found to
have its difficulties, and to be particu-
larly . susceptible to party management.
There had been a general attempt
throughout the world to bring out a
better method of representation, and
an attempt had been made to find some
method by which the selected members
would fairly represent their constitu-
ents, and different proportional systems
had boon adopted. In Tasmania he had
found tho Hare-Clark system spoken
of ns the proportional system. As a
matter of fact, there were over 800
different kinds of proportional systems.
On another occasion he would consider
the difficulties, as well as the advan-
tages, of the Hare-Clark system in com-
parison with many other systems of
electoral representation.
As far as the party Hst system was
concerned, said Rotarian Bntler, the
candidates were grouped in parties, as
they had been at the recent election.
The elector gave one vote for the man
he liked best. That vote did not count
for the particular candidate, but for
the party. When the total votes were
considerad the parties were allotted so
many members in the House, and the
members with the largest numbers >f
votes in the party got elected. He. had
been surprised at the last State elec-
tion to bear ont candidate remark that
he thought we had a system of voting
in Tasmania which waa. unique. It had
been evolved - and first started in Tas-
mania, and, according to what he had
read of his remarks in. "The Mercury,"
lt was supposed to be in Tasmania only.
As a . matter of fact, there were
260,000,000 electors In different parts
of the world using the system, so that
it was not in Tasmania only. He had
no (dea it had made such progress.
Rotarian Butler wrns accorded a vote
of thanks. »
Brightest Jewel," Rotarian Seott-PeWer
nxesicUng at th* piano.
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