THE DIRECT RESULTS OF MAJORITY SYSTEMS
"I therefore agree that it is impossible to defend the rough and ready
method which has been hitherto adopted as a proper or satisfactory
explanation of the representative principle. It is not merely, as more
than one speaker has pointed out, that under our existing system a
minority in the country may return a majority of the House of Commons,
but what more frequently happens, and what I am disposed to agree is
equally injurious in its results, is that you have almost always a great
disproportion in the relative size of the majority and minority in the
House of Commons as compared with their relative size in the
constituencies."
--THE RIGHT HON. H.H. ASQUITH[1]
"English writers," says Mr. Archibald E. Dobbs, in the _Irish Year
Book_, 1909, "often write as if election by a bare majority was the only
natural or possible mode of election, as if it was like day and night,
seedtime and harvest; something fixed and in the nature of things, and
not to be questioned or examined or improved." The unquestioning habit
of our minds goes even farther than Mr. Dobbs suggests. For, although
prior to the Redistribution Act of 1885, every great town in the United
Kingdom, with the exception of London, was a parliamentary unit, yet the
system of single-member constituencies made general by that Act is now
regarded by many as another essential and permanent feature of the
English parliamentary system. But if, as this chapter proposes to show,
existing electoral methods may result, and have resulted, in a complete
travesty of representation, if these methods fail in every respect to
fulfil the requirements of a satisfactory electoral system, then neither
single-member constituencies nor the majority method of election can be
permitted to stand permanently in the way of effective improvement.
_The exaggeration of majorities._
Since the Redistribution Act of 1885, when the system of single-member
constituencies was made general, there have been eight General
Elections, and these are amply sufficient to illustrate the working of
this system. A complete analysis of these elections, prepared by Mr. J.
Rooke Corbett, M.A., of the Manchester Statistical Society, appears in
Appendix V.[2] It will be sufficient for present purposes if attention
is directed to some of the more obvious of their lessons. The General
Elections of 1895, 1900, and 1906, resulted in the return to the House
of Commons of a number of representatives of the victorious party far in
excess of that to which their polling strength entitled them, and this
result, repeated three times in succession, has given rise to a
widespread belief that this system necessarily and always yields to the
victors an exaggerated majority. There is, however, no clear conception
of the extent to which these exaggerated majorities diverge from the
truth, and an examination of the figures is therefore desirable. Here
are the totals for the General Elections of 1900 and 1906:[3]--
GENERAL ELECTION, 1900
Parties. Votes Seats Seats in
Obtained. Obtained. proportion
to Votes.
Unionists 2,548,736 402 343
Home Rulers 2,391,319 268 327
Majorities 157,417 134 16
GENERAL ELECTION, 1906
Parties. Votes Seats Seats in
Obtained. Obtained. proportion
to Votes.
Ministerialists 3,395,811 513 387
Unionists 2,494,794 157 283
Majorities 901,017 356 104
It will be seen that in the General Election of 1900 the Unionists
obtained a majority of 134, but that if parties had been represented in
proportion to their polling strength this majority would have been 16,
whilst the majority of 356 obtained at the General Election of 1906 by
the Ministerialists (in which term, for the purposes of comparison, all
members of the Liberal, Labour and Nationalist parties are included)
would, under similar conditions, have been a majority of 104 only. The
very important change in public opinion disclosed by the polls at the
second of these elections was not nearly sufficient to justify the
enormous displacement that took place in the relative party strengths
within the House of Commons. The extent of the possible displacement in
representation may be more fully realised from a consideration of the
figures for Great Britain, for the representation of Ireland, where
parliamentary conditions have become stereotyped, is but little affected
at any election. An increase in the Liberal vote from 2,073,116 to
3,093,978--an increase of 50 per cent.--resulted in a change in the
number of representatives from 186 to 428, an increase of 130 per cent.,
whilst a decrease in the Conservative vote from 2,402,740 to
2,350,086--a decline of little more than 2 per cent.--resulted in a
reduction in representation from 381 to 139 members, a decline of 63 per
cent. The displacement was even more pronounced in London, where the
number of Liberal members rose from 8 to 40, and the number of
Conservative members fell from 52 to 20. The violence of these changes
was attributed to a similar change on the part of the electors, but it
was much more largely due to an electoral method that exaggerates any
changes in public opinion beyond all reason.
If, however, the results--not of two but of the eight General Elections,
1885-1910--are considered it will be seen that the current belief, that
the single-member system invariably yields a large majority, rests on a
very precarious foundation. The General Election of 1892, for example,
gave to the Liberals (inclusive of the Nationalists) a majority of 44
only. In England (which, excluding Wales and Monmouth, returns 461
members) the Conservatives in 1895 and 1900 had majorities of 233 and
213; in 1906 the Liberals had a majority of 207; but in the elections of
January and December 1910, the Conservatives had on each occasion a
majority of 17 only. If Wales and Monmouth are included, it will be
found that in the 1910 elections the Liberal majorities were 13 and 11
respectively. Single-member constituencies do not therefore guarantee
large majorities. It can with greater truth be said that they guarantee
wrong majorities, for, as the following table shows, there is no
constant relation between the size of the majority in votes and the size
of the majority in seats:--
General Election. Majority in Seats. Majority in Votes.
1885 Liberal 158 Liberal 564,391
1886 Conservative 104 Liberal 54,817
1892 Liberal 44 Liberal 190,974
1895 Conservative 150 Conservative 117,473
1900 Conservative 134 Conservative 157,417
1906 Liberal 356 Liberal 901,017
1910 (Jan.) Liberal 124 Liberal 495,683
1910 (Dec.) Liberal 126 Liberal 355,945
The majority of 44 seats which the Liberals obtained in 1892 represented
a majority of 190,974 votes, whereas a much smaller Conservative
majority at the polls, viz., 117,473, yielded in 1895 a majority in
seats of 150. The overwhelming victory of 1895 represented the very
slender majority of 117,473 votes in a total of 4,841,769, whilst at the
next election, 1900, when the Conservatives increased their majority at
the polls, their majority in the House of Commons was reduced. The
Liberal majority in votes in the election of December 1910 was smaller
than in that of the preceding January, but not the majority in seats. In
1886, the Conservatives obtained the large majority of 104 without
having any majority in votes, and, if England is taken alone, it will be
found that in January 1910 the Liberals had a majority of 29,877 in
votes, and that in December the Conservatives had a majority of 31,744,
whereas on each occasion the Conservatives obtained a majority of
17 seats.
_The disfranchisement of minorities._
Politicians, to whom the one great saving merit of the single-member
system is that it yields an exaggerated majority to the victors, would,
if pressed, find it very difficult to defend the results referred to in
the preceding paragraphs, and would be even more at a loss if asked to
state to what extent they considered that national opinion should be
falsified. The most ardent defenders of the system would hardly deny the
right of the minority to some representation, and it is worthy of note
that one of the reasons advanced by Mr. Gladstone in support of his
decision to adopt it was that such a system tended to secure
representation for minorities.[4] Yet, as prophesied in the debates of
1885, the minorities in the South and West of Ireland have since that
date been permanently disfranchised; in the eight Parliaments,
1885-1911, they have been entirely without representation. This
continued injustice is in itself sufficient to show how baseless was Mr.
Gladstone's assumption that the system of single member constituencies
would secure representation for minorities. This example, however, does
not stand alone. In the General Election of 1906 the Unionists of Wales
contested 17 constituencies, and although at the polls they numbered
52,637, they failed to secure a member; their 91,620 Liberal opponents
secured the whole of the representation allotted to those
constituencies. In addition the Liberals obtained the thirteen seats
which the Unionists did not challenge. The minority throughout Wales,
numbering 36 per cent, of the electors, had no spokesman in the House of
Commons. This result shows how completely a system of single-member
constituencies fails to protect minorities, and an analysis of the votes
cast in Scotland in 1910, both in January and December, reveals the fact
that the Unionist minority only escaped by the narrowest of margins the
fate which befel the Welsh Unionists in 1906. The figures speak for
themselves:--
SCOTLAND (Boroughs and Counties, January 1910)
Parties. Votes. Seats Seats in
Obtained. proportion
to Votes.
Liberal 352,334 59 38
Labour and Socialist 35,997 2 4
Unionist 255,589 9 28
Totals 643,920 70 70
Every Scottish Unionist member of Parliament represented on an average
28,400 voters, whilst a Liberal member represented less than 6000
voters. The figures repay still further examination. One of the Unionist
seats--the Camlachie division of Glasgow--was only captured as the result
of a split in the Ministerialist ranks. The other eight seats were won
by majorities ranging from 41 to 874, amounting in the aggregate to
3156. If therefore in these constituencies some 1600 Unionist voters had
changed sides, the Unionist party, though numbering more than a quarter
of a million, or 40 per cent. of the electorate, might have failed to
secure any representation at all. With the single-member system more
than a quarter of a million of Scottish Unionists only obtained
representation as it were by accident. In the same election the Liberals
in the counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, numbering 134,677, found
themselves without a representative.[5]
_The underrepresentation of majorities._
The failure of existing electoral methods to provide representation for
minorities not only unduly emphasizes racial and other differences
between different parts of the same country, as in Ireland, but often
leads to a complete falsification of public opinion. The results in
Birmingham and Manchester in the election of 1906 may serve as a text.
As a result of that election these two towns were represented in
Parliament as being absolutely opposed to one another--a heightened
contrast which was a pure caricature of the difference disclosed by the
polls. Manchester (including Salford) returned nine Ministerialists;
they were elected by the votes of 51,721 citizens, whilst the votes of
their 33,907 political opponents counted for nothing. Manchester was
solid for Liberalism. Birmingham (with Aston Manor) was represented by
eight Unionist members elected by 51,658 citizens, but here again the
polls disclosed a dissentient minority of 22,938. The total number of
votes in Manchester was 85,628, and in Birmingham 74,596. Manchester
(with Salford) has one more member than Birmingham (with Aston Manor),
because of the larger population and electorate of the former area. The
Ministerialists of Manchester and Salford were equal in number to the
Unionists in Birmingham, and it is interesting to observe that the
former obtained additional representation because their opponents were
more numerous than were the opponents of the Unionists in Birmingham.
The combined results of these two districts disclose the crowning
weakness of a system of single-member constituencies. Taken together the
Unionists numbered 85,565, the Ministerialists 74,659, and if the net
Unionist majority of 10,906 had been spread over the whole of the two
areas it would have yielded in each constituency the very respectable
majority of 640. If their voting power had been evenly diffused the
Unionists might have won the whole of the seventeen seats, whereas they
were, as a result of the election, in a minority of one. This possible
inversion of the true opinion of the electorate may perhaps be more
clearly understood from another example taken from the same
election,--the results of the polls in the county divisions of
Warwickshire.
WARWICKSHIRE (ELECTION, 1906)
Electoral Conservative Liberal Conservative Liberal
Division Votes. Votes. Majority. Majority.
Tamworth 7,561 4,842 2,719 --
Nuneaton 5,849 7,677 -- 1,828
Rugby 4,907 5,181 -- 274
Stratford-on-Avon 4,173 4,321 -- 148
-------------------------------------------
22,490 22,021 469
The Conservatives, who were in a majority of 469, obtained one-fourth of
the representation allotted to the county. Similar examples can be given
from nearly every election. Thus the figures for the five divisions of
Sheffield in the election of December 1910 were as follows:--
SHEFFIELD (ELECTION, DECEMBER 1910)
Electoral Ministerial Unionist Ministerial Unionist
Division Votes. Votes. Majority. Majority.
Attercliffe 6,532 5,354 1,178 --
Brightside 5,766 3,902 1,864 --
Central 3,271 3,455 -- 184
Eccleshall 5,849 6,039 -- 190
Hallam 5,593 5,788 -- 195
-------------------------------------------
27,011 24,538 2,473
It will be seen that the Ministerial majority in each of the
Attercliffe and Brightside divisions was larger than the aggregate of
the Unionist majorities in the other three divisions; yet the Unionists
obtained three seats out of five.
In the same election the result of the contested seats in London
(including Croydon and West Ham) was as follows:--
Parties. Votes Obtained. Seats Obtained.
Unionist . . . . . . 268,127 29
Ministerialist . . . . 243,722 31
The Unionists were in a majority of 24,405, but only obtained a minority
of the seats. Had their majority been uniformly distributed throughout
London there would have been an average majority for the Unionists of
400 in every constituency, and in that case the press would have said
that London was solidly Unionist.
It may be contended that the foregoing are isolated cases, but
innumerable examples can be culled from electoral statistics showing how
a system of single-member constituencies may fail to secure for
majorities the influence and power which are rightly theirs. In the
General Election of 1895 the contested elections yielded the following
results:--
GENERAL ELECTION, 1895 (Contested Constituencies)
Parties. Votes. Seats.
Unionists . . . . . . 1,785,372 282
Home Rulers . . . . 1,823,809 202
These figures show that in a contest extending over no less than 484
constituencies the Unionists, who were in a minority of 38,437,
obtained a majority of 80 seats. In this election, if an allowance is
made for uncontested constituencies, it will be found that the Unionists
were in a majority, but in the General Election of 1886 the figures for
the whole of the United Kingdom (including an allowance for uncontested
seats made on the same basis[6]) were as follows:--
GENERAL ELECTION, 1886 (All Constituencies)
Parties. Votes Obtained. Seats Obtained.
Home Rulers . . . . 2,103,954 283
Unionists . . . . . . 2,049,137 387
This election was regarded as a crushing defeat for Mr. Gladstone. He
found himself in the House of Commons in a minority of 104, but his
supporters in the country were in a majority. The results of the General
Election of 1874--although the system of single-member constituencies
had not then been made general--are equally instructive. The figures are
as follows:--
GENERAL ELECTION, 1874
Parties. Votes Seats Seats in
Obtained. Obtained. proportion
to Votes.
Conservative . . . . . . 1,222,000 356 300
Liberal and Home Rulers . 1,436,000 296 352
From this it appears that in 1874, while the Liberals in the United
Kingdom, in the aggregate, had a majority of 214,000 votes, the
Conservatives had a majority of 60 in the members elected, whereas with
a rational system of representation the Liberals should have had a
majority of 52.[7]
Such anomalous results are not confined to this country; they are but
examples of that inversion of national opinion which marks at all stages
the history of elections based on the majority system. Speaking of the
United States, Professor Commons says that "as a result of the district
system the national House of Representatives is scarcely a
representative body. In the fifty-first Congress, which enacted the
McKinley Tariff Law, the majority of the representatives were elected by
a minority of the voters." In the fifty-third Congress, elected in 1892,
the Democrats, with 47.2 per cent, of the vote, obtained 59.8 per cent,
of the representatives.
The stupendous Republican victory of 1894 was equally unjustified; the
Republican majority of 134 should have been a minority of 7, as against
all other parties.[8] Similarly in New South Wales the supporters of Mr.
Reid's government, who secured a majority of the seats at the election
of 1898, were in a minority of 15,000. The figures of the New York
Aldermanic election of 1906 show an equally striking contrast between
the actual results of the election and the probable results under a
proportional system:--
_A "game of dice."_
Parties. Seats Seats in
Obtained. proportion
to Votes.
Republican 41 18
Democrat 26 27
Municipal Ownership
Candidates 6 25
Socialist -- 2
It is unnecessary to proceed with the recital of the anomalous results
of existing electoral methods. It has been abundantly shown that a
General Election often issues in a gross exaggeration of prevailing
opinion; that such exaggeration may at one time involve a complete
suppression of the minority, whilst at another time a majority may fail
to obtain its fair share of representation. M. Poincaré may well liken
an election to a game of dice (he speaks of _les coups de dé du système
majoritaire_,) for no one who has followed the course of elections could
have failed to have observed how largely the final results have depended
upon chance. This, indeed, was the most striking characteristic of the
General Elections of 1910. In the January election there were 144
constituencies in which the successful member was returned by a majority
of less than 500. Of these constituencies 69 seats were held by the
Ministerialists and 75 by the Unionists. The majorities were in some
cases as low as 8, 10, and 14. The aggregate of the majorities in the
Ministerialist constituencies amounted to 16,931, and had some 8500
Liberals in these constituencies changed sides, the Ministerialist
majority of 124 might have been annihilated. On the other hand, the
Unionists held 75 seats by an aggregate majority of 17,389, and had
fortune favoured the Ministeralists in these constituencies their
majority would have been no less than 274. Such is the stability of the
foundation on which the House of Commons rests; such the method to which
we trust when it is necessary to consult the nation on grave
national issues.
_The importance of boundaries_.
All these anomalies can be traced to the same cause--that with a
single-member system the whole of the representation of a constituency
must necessarily be to the majority of the electors, whether that
majority be large or small. It directly follows that the results of
elections often depend not so much upon the actual strength of political
parties, as upon the manner in which that strength is distributed over
the country. If that strength is evenly distributed, then the minority
may be crushed in every constituency; if unevenly distributed any result
is possible. In the latter case the result may be considerably
influenced by the manner in which the constituencies are arranged. A
slight change in the line of the boundaries of a constituency might
easily make a difference of 50 votes, whilst "to carry the dividing line
from North to South, instead of from East to West, would, in many
localities, completely alter the character of the representation." [9] An
example will make this statement clear. Take a town with 13,000 Liberal
and 12,000 Conservative electors and divide it into five districts of
5000 electors each. If there is a section of the town in which the
Liberals largely preponderate--and it often happens that the strength of
one or other of the parties is concentrated in a particular area--the
net result of the election in five districts will depend upon the way in
which the boundary lines are drawn. The possible results of two
different distributions may be shown in an extreme form thus:--
Constituency Libs. Cons.
1st. 4,000 1,000 Lib. victory.
2nd. 2,400 2,600 Cons. "
3rd. 2,300 2,700 " "
4th. 2,200 2,800 " "
5th. 2,100 2,900 " "
------ ------
13,000 12,000
Constituency Libs. Cons.
1st. 2,600 2,400 Lib. victory.
2st. 2,600 2,400 Lib. "
3st. 2,600 2,400 Lib. "
4th. 2,600 2,400 Lib. "
5th. 2,600 2,400 Lib. "
------ ------
13,000 12,000
_The gerrymander_.
With one set of boundaries the area in which the Liberals largely
preponderate might be enclosed in one constituency. The Liberals might
obtain a majority of 3000 in this constituency but lose the other four
seats. If, however, the boundary lines were so arranged that each
constituency included a portion of this excessively Liberal area, the
Liberals might obtain the whole of the five seats. In both cases the
result of the election would fail to give a true presentation of the
real opinions of the town. The influence of boundaries in determining
the results of an election has been clearly realized in the United
States for more than a century. Professor Commons states that whenever
the periodical rearrangement of constituencies takes place the
boundaries are "gerrymandered." "Every apportionment Act," says he,
"that has been passed in this or any other country has involved
inequality; and it would be absurd to ask a political party to pass such
an Act, and give the advantage of the inequality to the opposite party.
Consequently, every apportionment Act involves more or less of the
gerrymander. The gerrymander is simply such a thoughtful construction of
districts as will economize the votes of the party in power by giving it
small majorities in a large number of districts, and coop up the
opposing party with overwhelming majorities in a small number of
districts.... Many of the worst gerrymanders have been so well designed
that they come close within all constitutional requirements." [10]
Although the National Congress has stated that the district for
congressional elections must be a compact and contiguous territory, the
law is everywhere disregarded.
The word "gerrymander" has found its way into English journalism. It was
used by Liberals in their criticism of Mr. Balfour's abortive
redistribution scheme of 1905, and has been equally used by Unionists in
1909 in their criticism of Mr. Harcourt's London Elections Bill. On
neither occasion was the word used in its original meaning, and,
although its history is to be found in most works on electoral methods,
the story may, perhaps, be repeated with advantage:--
"The term Gerrymander dates from the year 1811, when Elbridge Gerry was
Governor of Massachusetts, and the Democratic, or, as it was then
termed, the Republican party, obtained a temporary ascendency in the
State. In order to secure themselves in the possession of the
Government, the party in power passed the famous law of 11 February
1812, providing for a new division of the State into senatorial
districts, so contrived that in as many districts as possible the
Federalists should be outnumbered by their opponents. To effect this all
natural and customary lines were disregarded, and some parts of the
State, particularly the counties of Worcester and Essex, presented
similar examples of political geography. It is said that Gilbert Stuart,
seeing in the office of the _Columbian Centinel_ an outline of the Essex
outer district, nearly encircling the rest of the country, added with
his pencil a beak to Salisbury, and claws to Salem and Marblehead,
exclaiming, 'There, that will do for a salamander!' 'Salamander!' said
Mr. Russell, the editor: 'I call it a Gerrymander!' The mot obtained
vogue, and a rude cut of the figure published in the _Centinel_ and in
the _Salem Gazette_, with the natural history of the monster duly set
forth, served to fix the word in the political vocabulary of the
country. So efficient was the law that at the elections of 1812, 50,164
Democratic voters elected twenty-nine senators against eleven elected by
51,766 Federalists; and Essex county, which, when voting as a single
district had sent five Federalists to the Senate, was now represented in
that body by three Democrats and two Federalists." [11]
Mr. Balfour's scheme did not involve a political rearrangement of
boundaries, and the word "gerrymandering" was thus incorrectly employed
in relation to it, but so long as we retain a system of single-member
constituencies a Redistribution Bill will always invite suspicion
because of the possibilities of influencing the arrangement of
constituencies which such a measure affords. Instructions are usually
given to boundary commissioners to attach due consideration "to
community or diversity of interests, means of communication, physical
features, existing electoral boundaries, sparsity or density of
population;" [12] but although such instructions are at once reasonable
and just, they would not prevent, and indeed might be used to
facilitate, a gerrymander in the American sense of the term were such a
proceeding determined upon. It is quite conceivable that a mining
district in which one party had a very large majority might be
surrounded by an area in which the political conditions were more
balanced, but in which the opposite party had a small majority. If that
mining area was, in accordance with the wording of these instructions,
treated as one constituency because of its community of interests and
the surrounding area divided into three or more districts, the minority
would in all probability obtain a majority of seats.
_ The modern gerrymander_
The new constituencies required by the South Africa Act of 1909 have
been arranged with the utmost care,[13] but had the delegates to the
South African National Convention adhered to their original proposal to
abandon single-member constituencies, they would have secured for South
Africa, among other invaluable benefits, complete security from the
gerrymander, any possibility of which begets suspicion and reacts in a
disastrous way upon political warfare. The gerrymander is nothing more
or less than a fraudulent practice. But the United States is not the
only country in which such practices take place. Their counter-part in
Canada was described by Sir John Macdonald as "hiving the grits," and
even in England, without any change of boundaries, practices have arisen
within the last few years which have had their birth in the same motives
that produced the American gerrymander. In boroughs which are divided
into more than one constituency there is a considerable number of voters
who have qualifications in more than one division. A man may vote in any
division in which he has a qualification, but in not more than one. He
may make his choice. In Edinburgh for many years, on both sides of
politics, there has been a constant transfer of voters from one register
to another in the hopes of strengthening the party's position in one or
other division. It was even alleged that the precise moment of a vacancy
in West Edinburgh (May 1909) was determined by the desire to ascertain
the strength of the Unionist party in that division, to discover how
many Unionist votes should be transferred for the purpose of improving
Unionist prospects or of defeating the designs of their opponents. This
allegation may be wholly unfounded, but the single-member system
encourages such a proceeding, and the statement at least indicates how
the voting power of a division may be manipulated. The mere possibility
of such an action arouses the suspicion that it has taken place. Similar
practices have, it is stated, been pursued in Bristol. Votes have been
transferred from one division, where one of the parties was in a
hopeless minority, for the purpose of strengthening its position in
other divisions. An examination of the figures of the election in
Birmingham in 1906 shows that in one division, Birmingham East, the
Unionists narrowly escaped defeat. They won by a majority of 585 only.
In the other divisions the Unionists won by very large majorities. Must
not the possibility of transferring surplus votes in strong
constituencies to strengthen the position in weak constituencies prove
an irresistible temptation to the agents responsible for the success of
the party? They are entitled to make use of all the advantages at their
disposal. In this way a new and more subtle form of the "gerrymander"
has arisen in England, and if we are to redeem English political warfare
from proceedings which approximate very closely to sharp practices, we
must so amend our electoral system as to give due weight to the votes
not only of the majority but of the minority as well.
_The Block Vote_
The analysis of the results of majority systems would not be complete
without some reference to the use of the "block" vote in the London
County Council, the London Borough Council, and other elections. In the
London County Council elections each constituency returns two members,
and each elector can give one vote to each of two candidates. The
Metropolitan boroughs are divided into wards returning from three to
nine members, each elector giving one vote apiece to candidates up to
the number to be returned. [14] Both in the London County and London
Borough elections the majority, as in a single-member constituency, can
obtain the whole of the representation. All the defects which arise from
parliamentary elections again appear, and often in a more accentuated
form. The figures of the two London County elections, 1904, 1907,
disclose a catastrophic change in representation similar to that which
characterized the General Election of 1906:--
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTION, 1904
Seats in
Parties. Votes. Seats proportion
Obtained. to Votes.
Progressive and Labour 357,557 83 64
Moderate 287,079 34 52
Independent 12,940 1 2
Progressive majority over
Moderates 70,478 49 12
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTION, 1907
Seats in
Parties. Votes. Seats proportion
Obtained. to Votes.
Moderate 526,700 79 67
Progressive and Labour 395,749 38 50
Independent 6,189 1 1
Moderate majority over
Progressive and Labour 130,951 41 17
_The London County Council elections_.
A swing of the pendulum which, measured in votes, would have transferred
a majority of twelve into a minority of seventeen, had the effect of
changing a majority of 49 into a minority of 41. This alternate
exaggeration of the prevailing tendencies in municipal politics gives
rise to a false impression of the real opinions of the elector. The
citizens of London are not so unstable as the composition of their
Council, but it is the more violent displacement which forms the basis
of comment in the press and of municipal action. These elections, too,
like the Parliamentary elections, showed with what ease the minority
throughout large areas may be deprived of representation. Six adjoining
suburban boroughs--Brixton, Norwood, Dulwich, Lewisham, Greenwich,
Woolwich--were, before the election of 1907, represented by twelve
Progressives. At that election they returned twelve Moderates; indeed on
that occasion the outer western and southern boroughs, in one continuous
line from Hampstead to Fulham, from Wandsworth to Woolwich, returned
Moderates and Moderates only.
_The election of aldermen of the L.C.C._
The London County Council elections of 1910 gave the Municipal Reform
party a majority of two councillors over the Progressive and Labour
parties. The transfer of a single vote in Central Finsbury would have
been sufficient to have produced an exact balance. It was the duty of
the new Council to elect the aldermen, the block vote being used. The
majority of two was sufficient to enable the Municipal Reformers to
carry the election of every one of the ten candidates nominated by them,
thus depriving the minority of any voice in the election of aldermen.
The object for which aldermen were instituted was entirely set at
naught, and this the method of election alone made possible. The
privilege of selecting aldermen was used by the party in power, not for
the purpose of strengthening the Council by the addition of
representative men, but for the purpose of strengthening the party
position.[15] The privilege has been abused in a similar way by the
English provincial boroughs. In these boroughs, prior to the Election of
Aldermen Act, 1910, aldermen as well as councillors took part in the
election of aldermen. In some cases a party having once obtained a
predominant position has, by making full use of its power to elect
aldermen in sympathy with itself, succeeded in perpetuating its
predominance, although defeated at the polls. The minority of the
councillors, with the assistance of the non-retiring aldermen, has not
only elected further aldermen from members of the same party, but has
controlled the policy of the Council. The Act referred to merely
prevents aldermen in municipal councils from voting in the election of
other aldermen, but does not go to the root of the evil. An alteration
in the method of election is required.
[Sidenote 1: _The election of Representative Peers of Scotland_.]
A further example of the use of the block vote may be taken from the
election of Scottish Representative Peers. At the commencement of each
Parliament the Scottish Peers meet in Holyrood Palace for the purpose of
electing sixteen of their number to represent the peerage of Scotland in
the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Unionist Peers are in a
majority, and the block vote enables them to choose sixteen Unionist
Peers. At the election of January 1910 Lord Torphichen, a Unionist Peer,
who had voted against his party on the Finance Bill of the previous
year, failed to secure re-election. Lord Torphichen was elected in the
following December, but the incident shows how complete is the power
conferred upon the majority by this method of election; not only
political opponents but dissenting members of the same party can be
excluded from representation.
_The Australian Senate_.
The block vote is used also in the election of members of the Australian
Senate. Each State elects six senators, half of whom retire every three
years. Each State is polled as a separate constituency, and each elector
has three votes. At the election of 1910 the Labour Party polled the
highest number of votes in each of the States, and thus succeeded in
returning eighteen senators, all other parties obtaining none. The
figures here given for the elections in Victoria and New South Wales
show that in Victoria the successful candidates were not even supported
by a majority of electors, and that in both States the excess of the
successful over their leading opponents was so small that a slight turn
over would have completely altered the result of the elections:--
ELECTION of AUSTRALIAN SENATORS, 1910
_Victoria._
Successful. Unsuccessful.
Findley (Lab.)....217,673 Best (Fusionist) ....... 213,976
Barker (Lab.).....216,199 Trenwith (Fusionist).... 211,058
Blakey (Lab.).....215,117 M'Cay (Fusionist) ...... 195,477
Goldstein (Independent) 53,583
Ronald (Independent) ... 18,380
648,889 692,474
_New South Wales._
Successful. Unsuccessful.
A.M'Dougall(Lab.) ..., 249,212 J.P. Gray (Fusionist)... 220,569
A. Gardiner (Lab.) ... 247,047 E. Pulsford (Fusionist). 214,889
A. Rae (Lab.)..........239,307 J. C. Neild (Fusionist). 212,150
J. Norton (Independ.)... 50,893
R. Mackenzie (Independ.) 13,608
J.O. Maroney (Independ.) 9,660
T. Hoare (Independ.).... 8,432
735,566 730,201
_London Borough Councils_
The London Borough Council elections yield results equally
unsatisfactory. The Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords
which, in 1907, examined the Municipal Representation Bill introduced by
Lord Courtney of Penwith, sums up these results in the following
paragraphs:--
"If the different wards are similar in character, the majority, even if
little more than one-half, may secure all the seats. For instance, in
one borough the Progressives, with 19,430 votes, obtained all the 30
seats, and the Municipal Reformers, though they polled 11,416 votes, did
not obtain even one; while, on the contrary, in four other boroughs the
Progressives did not secure any representation. "On the other hand, the
system does not in all cases secure power to the majority. If the wards
are dissimilar and the majority too much condensed in certain districts,
the minority may secure a majority of seats, as in the case of one
borough where 46,000 votes secured 30 seats, while 54,000 votes only
obtained 24.
"The system leads to violent fluctuations. If the two great parties are
nearly evenly divided, it is obvious that a comparatively small change
may create a revolution in the representation. In Lewisham, at the 1903
election, the Progressives had 34 seats and the Moderates only 6; in
1905, on the other hand, the Municipal Reformers obtained all the 42
seats, and the Progressives failed to secure even one."[16]
One example will suffice to illustrate the findings of this Committee.
Here are the results of two wards in the Borough of Battersea:--
BATTERSEA BOROUGH COUNCIL ELECTION, 1906
Ward Votes Obtained.
Municipal Reform Progressive
Candidates. Candidates.
Shaftesbury 786 905 }
(six seats) 777 902 }
769 899 }all
753 895 }successful.
753 891 }
741 852 }
----- -----
Totals 4,579 5,344
St. John's 747 } 217
(three seats) 691 }all 197
686 }successful. 191
----- -----
Totals 2,124 605
Totals for both wards 6,703 5,949
These tables disclose some curious anomalies. Each elector in the
Shaftesbury ward has six votes--the ward being entitled to six
Councillors--whereas each elector in the St. John's ward, which is only
entitled to three Councillors, has but three votes. The additional
representation is allotted to the Shaftesbury ward because of its larger
electorate, but the only electors to reap any advantage from this fact
are the Progressives. The presence in the ward of a large number of
citizens who are Municipal Reformers has merely had the effect of
increasing the amount of representation obtained by their opponents.
Further, the number of Municipal Reformers in the Shaftesbury ward
exceeded the number of Municipal Reformers in the St. John's ward; in
the former they obtained no representation, in the latter they obtained
three seats. The two wards taken together showed a net majority in votes
of 754 for the Municipal Reformers who, however, only secured three
seats out of nine. Taking the Borough as a whole the Municipal Reformers
obtained 24 representatives with 53,910 votes, whereas the Progressives
obtained 30 representatives with 46,274 votes.
_Provincial Municipal Councils_.
Nor are the results of the Provincial Borough elections more
satisfactory. These boroughs are usually divided into wards returning
three or six members each. One-third of the councillors retire each
year, and each ward is called upon to elect one or two councillors, as
the case may be. The figures for the Municipal elections held in
November 1908, at Manchester, Bradford, and Leeds disclose a similar
discrepancy between the votes polled and the seats obtained. [_See
table below_.]
BOROUGH COUNCIL ELECTIONS, 1908
Parties Votes Seats Seats in
Polled. Obtained. proportion
to Votes.
_Manchester_.
Conservative 25,724 14 10
Independent 11,107 3 4
Liberal 14,474 7 6
Labour and Socialist 15,963 2 6
_Bradford_.
Conservative 12,809 10 6
Liberal 12,106 6 5
Socialist-Labour 11,388 0 5
Independent 1,709 1 1
_Leeds_.
Conservative 18,145 8 5
Liberal 19,507 3 5
Socialist-Labour 9,615 1 2
Independent 3,046 1 1
_Summary._
The examples given in this chapter may be briefly summarised. The same
defects are disclosed in Parliamentary, County Council and Municipal
(both metropolitan and provincial) elections. These defects may be
classified under three heads: (1) often a gross exaggeration of the
strength of the victorious party; (2) sometimes a complete
disfranchisement of the minority; and (3) at other times a failure of a
majority of citizens to obtain their due share of representation. In
addition, running through all the results, there is an element of
instability due to the fact that a slight change in public opinion may
produce an altogether disproportionate effect, the violence of the swing
of the pendulum arising more from the electoral method than from the
fickleness of the electorate. These defects all spring from the same
root cause--that the representation of any constituency is awarded to
the majority of the electors in that constituency irrespective of the
size of the majority; that the votes of the minority count for nothing.
The result of a General Election is thus often dependent not upon the
relative strengths of political forces, but upon the chance way in which
those forces are distributed, and in a considerable measure may be
influenced by the way in which the boundaries of constituencies are
drawn. Such a system invites and encourages gerrymandering, both in its
original and modern forms, but this detestable practice can be made of
no avail and the results of elections rendered trustworthy if we so
reform present methods as to give due weight to the strength of each
political party irrespective of the way in which that strength may be
distributed.
[Footnote 1: Reply to Deputation, House of Commons, 10 November 1908.]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Corbett's analyses were accepted by the Royal
Commission on Electoral Systems as "representing the truth as nearly as
circumstances will permit."--Report, p. 31.]
[Footnote 3: There is a marked difference between the electoral
conditions of Great Britain and Ireland, but as the Government of the
day depends for support upon a majority of the representatives of all
parts of the kingdom, the figures here given are those for the
United Kingdom.]
[Footnote 4: Mr. Gladstone, in introducing the Redistribution of Seats
Bill, 1 December 1884, said: "The recommendations of this system
(one-member districts) I think are these--that it is very economical, it
is very simple, and it goes a very long way towards that which many
gentlemen have much at heart, viz., what is roughly termed
representation of minorities."--Hansard, 3rd series, vol. 294, p. 379.]
[Footnote 5: Other examples are given in Appendix V. The representation
of minorities varies very considerably in amount, and, as shown in the
Appendix, depends not upon their size but upon the way in which they are
distributed over the electoral area.]
[Footnote 6: The basis of calculation, as explained by Mr. Rooke
Corbett, is as follows: "It seems to me reasonable to suppose that those
changes of public opinion which affected the contested constituencies
affected the uncontested constituencies also, and therefore, in
estimating the number of voters in an uncontested constituency, I have
assumed that the strength of each party varied from one election to
another in the same ratio as in the contested constituencies in the same
county."--P. R. Pamphlet, No. 14. _Recent Electoral Statistics_, p. 5.]
[Footnote 7: These figures are taken from an article by Robert B.
Hayward in _The Nineteenth Century_, February 1884, p. 295.]
[Footnote 8: _Proportional Representation_, by Professor Commons, p. 52
_et seq_. For further examples in the United States the reader should
consult Chapter III. of Professor Commons' book.]
[Footnote 9: _Preferential Voting_, by the Right Hon. J. Parker Smith.
p. 8.]
[Footnote 10: _Proportional Representation_, p. 50.]
[Footnote 11: _The Machinery of Politics_, W. R. Warn, 1872.]
[Footnote 12: Such instructions are contained in Clause 40 of the South
African Act, signed by the South African National Convention at
Bloemfontein, 11 May 1909.]
[Footnote 13: See Report of Delimitation Commission.]
[Footnote 14: This electoral method is known by various names. In
Australia it is called the block vote, in the United States the general
ticket, on the Continent the _scrutin de liste_.]
[Footnote 15: The action was defended on the ground that the Municipal
Reform party had obtained a majority of 39,653 votes at the polls.]
[Footnote 16: _Report on Municipal Representation Bill (H.L.)_, 1907
(132), p. vi.]