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Title: A Plea For Pure Democracy
Author: Catherine Helen Spence
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Language: English
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A Plea For Pure Democracy
Catherine Helen Spence
Preface
Many of the ideas and even some of the language
used in this pamphlet, have already appeared in the columns of the
Register; but as newspaper correspondence is often overlooked, and
cannot easily be referred back to, and as it is impossible to give
a comprehensive view of an important subject in such brief and
detached communications, I feel that it is necessary to do
something more for its elucidation. I am merely the interpreter
between the great thinkers of England and the people of South
Australia; and, however imperfect my treatment of the subject may
be, I trust to the intelligence and candour of my fellow colonists
for a patient and thoughtful hearing.
A looker-on sometimes sees more of the game than
the players, and as I have never been mixed up with the turmoil of
elections, I can, perhaps, see more dispassionately than those who
have, the defects of our present system and the cure for them. It
appears to me that in a new colony like this, we may fight the
battle of the world to gain a fair field for truth and justice,
that we may remove the greatest bar to the spread of freedom, by
shewing the example of the first pure democracy of modern
times—where equality is not a fiction, but a
fact—where Government is really in the hands of the wisest
and best; and where the people have provided for the education and
elevation of their whole body, by allowing every opinion a fair
hearing, by calling out everything that is original and special; by
such machinery of representation as is self-adjusting and
reparatory, farsighted, and progressive; by putting a premium upon
truth and honour, instead of lavishing all its favours upon
flattery and simulation.
We want no paternal Government to tell us what we
ought to hear, do, or say; we want no paternal press to decide for
us what we would not like to hear, and what consequently we had
better not hear. Where the people is the governing power, it must,
like all other governing powers, occasionally hear what it does not
like. We are not children to be coaxed and managed, but men and
women fit to think and judge for ourselves.
The prophets who say smooth things and who prophesy
deceits; the candidates or representatives who will not presume to
have an opinion of their own, but who stand hat in hand soliciting
the sweet voices of the populace—the stump orator who
declares that the voice of the people is always the voice of
God—are as great enemies to progress and freedom in this
nineteenth century, as the veriest despot who has sat on the throne
of Naples or Russia.
The opponents of the extension of the suffrage in
England can point triumphantly to the United States, and to
Victoria, and ask if it is well to allow such floods of unwisdom to
darken knowledge and to corrupt political virtue. I want the
friends of the working man to show one example of his being worthy
of power; and I feel that such a colony as this, peopled by the
picked men of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany, abounding in
all the elements of wealth and material prosperity, with an amount
of natural shrewdness and intelligence, far above the average; with
a respectable Parliament, and a respectable Press; with no vested
interests, and few ignorant prejudices to overcome; is a fit place
for initiating that radical reform of enfranchising minorities
which, sooner or later, must be brought about, if we mean to make
any progress at all in the civilised world.
C.
H. S.
September, 1861.
A Plea For Pure Democracy
I propose in this pamphlet to explain the
principles and working of Mr. Hare’s new Reform Bill at
greater length than can be permitted to the occasional
correspondent of a newspaper. I believe that I made a mistake in
introducing this subject in the Register, under the title of
“Representation of Minorities,” instead of
“Equality of Representation,” for it has led to the
idea that somehow or other by this system, minorities are to rule;
and this has raised the antagonism of the majorities who have the
power at present, and who mean to keep it. But majorities always
will continue to rule; we only plead for a more accurate system of
recording votes, so that we may ascertain how great the majority
ought to be. We have already provided that every man shall have a
vote, and now only wish to secure that his vote shall be used. I do
not complain that the colony is too democratic, but that we are not
democratic enough, and if the reader will follow me patiently
through my arguments, I hope to prove that a more perfect
realisation of the democratic principle in our institutions would
be the most conservative movement South Australia could make.
I shall not begin by entering learnedly into the
theory of Government, and explaining minutely the principles and
practice of absolute monarchy, of limited monarchy, of oligarchy,
of mixed government, and of democracy. I will premise that the
government of the people by the people is the best form of
government; that no despotism, however benevolent and intelligent;
no oligarchy, however vigorous and high-minded—no
bureaucracy—however vigilant and efficient; can do for us
what we are fit to do for ourselves, and if there ever was a
community capable of self-government, it is such a one as ours. I
do not wish to limit the suffrage; I want every man to have a vote
and to use it, for it is the most valuable element of education and
progress that every man should feel his weight in the state.
There never has been an elevation of the average
citizen in modern times equal to that which prevailed in the old
Greek republics, and there every citizen was equal in the state.
The people in a body attended the national meetings, and spoke and
voted in person; the community being too small to demand the
representative system (which is the only form democracy has assumed
in modern times), by which the members of the deliberative body has
been lessened and made manageable. In all representative
institutions now in use in the civilised world, however, the old
simple idea of democracy has been lost, namely, that every man
shall have as much weight and power in the state as any other man.
Politicians have divided the country into boroughs and districts
more or less equal, have allowed more or less extension of the
suffrage, and more or less freedom of choice in the candidature,
but they have all gone on the principle that however the
constituency was formed, the majority should have a right to their
representative, and the minority have none. The minorities have
felt this a hardship when they were defeated, but they always lived
in hope that they might turn the tables on their opponents, and be
the majority by and by. In a country like Great Britain where the
franchise is limited, and where there are so many different large
interests, there is a chance that the majority in the agricultural
may be a minority in the commercial or manufacturing districts; so
that an opinion which is pretty widely diffused will be sure to
command majorities in one part of the kingdom, and thus have a
chance of being heard in Parliament. But in such a community as
this, where the suffrage is universal, and where the numerical
majority everywhere are labouring men and small farmers, where they
have the same interests, much the same education, and read the same
newspapers, it is quite possible that an opinion held by two-fifths
of the people might not command a majority in any particular
constituency. If it were not for the deadening power of habit, we
would see that this way of coming at the state of public opinion
was a most inadequate and mischievous one. But because our
forefathers accepted the division into boroughs and counties, in an
age when they seldom stirred from home, and took little interest in
the affairs of other boroughs or counties, the idea of the
co-operation of minorities in different localities has never
occoured to us.
The American declaration of independence opened
with a statement which, if it had been believed in and acted upon,
would have materially changed the destinies of the
Republic—“that all men were free, and equal.”
From the freedom, the slave was excepted, and from the equality,
the minorities; and from those two radical defects, have resulted
ninety nine hundredths of the blunders and mischiefs of that great
nation? If such a scheme as this of Mr. Hare’s had presented
itself to the founders of the American republic, the United States
would have been saved many evils, and the democratic principle much
obloquy. Reformers have applied themselves to endeavour to arrive
at a true system of representation by cunning slits in ballot
boxes, by equal electoral districts, and by extension of the
suffrage, but all without success; for the principle itself being
unjust, the fuller carrying out of it only leads to greater
injustice. The more equally the electoral districts are divided,
the more the suffrage is extended, the more people exercise their
right of voting, the greater is the power of the numerical
majority, and the less chance minorities have of obtaining a
hearing. The genius, the originality, the independence of the
country find no majority anywhere to appreciate them, and political
life is thronged with second and third rate men; who either have no
opinions of their own, or have the art of concealing them.
Political equality I understand to be something
very different from the common views of it. It does not mean that
if one man holds an opinion that is popular it shall be of use to
him in obtaining a representative; while another man’s, which
is unpopular, shall be of no use to him whatever. It means
this—that every man’s vote shall have its weight,
wherever he may live, and whatever majority or minority he may
belong to. It is by the enfranchisement of minorities alone that we
can arrive at the true state of public opinion. Let us suppose that
one-third of the voters in South Australia think that Government
immigration ought to be resumed, and two-thirds are opposed to it;
then there ought to be twelve members returned for the former and
twenty-four for the latter. But, according to our present system,
the minority might send only four, or six, or fourteen, according
to the majority being unequally divided in the eighteen electoral
districts. The number returned is no correct criterion of the
prevalence of an opinion, for there may be a majority of 146 in one
district, and a minority of one single vote in another, which is
presumed to balance the first. There has been lately a great
excitement on the question of Mr. Justice Boothby’s decisions
and conduct, and no doubt there is a very large majority who go
against the House of Assembly. The feeling was so strong and so
general that if there had been a dissolution a week ago and a fresh
election, it is probable that in every electoral district all the
members who voted for Mr. Duffield’s amendment would have
lost their seats, and other men put in their places. But the
unanimity of the members returned would be no proof of the
unanimity of public opinion, for the minority had been defeated in
detail in every constituency; while, if they had their fair share
of political power, they might have returned eight of the old
members expressly on account of the very vote which had so
irritated the majority.
To what purpose, it may be said, to return eight
members to a House composed of thirty-six? To be outvoted, of
course. Certainly to be outvoted, but not to be silenced—and
there is an immense difference there. They would be ready to take
advantage of any change in public opinion, to investigate the
proceedings of the majority, to point out their blunders, and
modify their extreme measures—this is all we claim for
minorities. The majority out of doors will always be the majority
in doors. Majorities will actually rule under the equal
representation system till the end of time, but that they will rule
more wisely and more justly is indisputable.
The inequality and injustice of our present system
cannot be denied by those who will look it in the face. Under the
present electoral law 2,000 voters in Adelaide, by uniting all
their votes for their six candidates, can prevent 1,999 from
returning a single member. If it had not been for informal votes,
the Political Association would have returned their six
representatives; and Mr. Hanson, the ablest man in the House of
Assembly, only got in through these mistakes. We know that it was
by thus uniting their strength that the same Association returned
all the three members for Burra and Clare. Does it not appear clear
as day that if each man in Adelaide had only had one vote to give
to one man, the constituency would have been more fairly
represented than it is now.
This principle, which would secure an equal
representation in a town returning six members, Mr. Hare’s
scheme would extend to a whole community. That every voter shall
have one vote which he shall give to one man, and that he shall be
at liberty to choose his man out of the whole range of candidates
in the country or colony, and that the number of votes necessary to
secure a candidate’s return shall be determined by the number
of votes polled, which, divided by the number of representatives
required, shall constitute the quota. For the House of Assembly of
thirty-six persons we shall suppose there are 18,000 recorded
votes, and this requires that each man should have 500 votes. These
are first principles; all others are questions of detail. The most
important of these is, that as leaders of parties and popular men
are not to have more than their quota of votes, there will not be
enough of votes to make up the thirty-six quotas, therefore each
man is allowed a second choice in case his first man does not get
500 votes, or in case he has 500 without him, and if the second
choice is under or over the quota he may have a third, a fourth, a
fifth, or as many as he pleases. He writes in his voting-paper, or
marks in the printed list, the candidates’ names according to
the order of his preference, and the first man in his list who
needs his vote gets it. When a voting-paper has contributed to the
return of a representative, it is put away as done with, and the
name of the returned candidate is cancelled from the remaining
voting-papers. Local votes are preferred to those from other
districts, and when it is necessary to choose between votes in the
same locality, the list which contains fewest names is preferred.
We will suppose that there will be twenty-four candidates who can
make up the quota, or more than the quota, of first votes. This
disposes of 12,000 voting-papers, leaving 6,000 from which to
select the remaining twelve. First, he must take those
voting-papers which contain 500 first and second votes; then 500,
first, second, and third; then 500 first, second, third, and
fourth, and lower still if necessary.
This is the system which ensures to every man his
fair share in the Legislature; this is the whole machinery which
provides that every vote shall be used to aid in the return of one
member; this is what is called too elaborate and Utopian to be
practised; this is what Mr. Grundy declared passes all
understanding, quoting the sapient remark of the Scottish Solomon
with reference to Bacon’s Novum Organum—as great a
discovery in science and philosophy as this is in politics. This is
what people may criticise in detail, but which no true democrat can
censure in principle; for it is pure representative
Democracy—not the spurious Democracy that has usurped its
name.
Everything that is new must expect opposition, and
no one could suppose Mr. Glyde’s suggestions could escape it;
but I think that the tone of the remarks in the House of Assembly
and in the newspaper comments have not been wise or candid. I
protest against the same man objecting first that the scheme is too
perfect to be practical, and then that it is not perfect enough; or
against it being too great a change in the apportioning of power,
and in the same breath asserting that it will result in no change
at all.
I will notice, and endeavour to answer, all the
objections which have been raised as to the details of the
scheme—and first, as to how it will affect the ballot.
We cannot absolutely secure the voter who can
neither read nor write from making blunders, and at the same time
give him the protection of the ballot; if the advantage is
considered to counterbalance the drawback, let the ballot be
continued. He is as secure against making blunders as he is at
present, and that is all I think that can be claimed for him.
The voting-papers given out at every polling-place
should have the names of the local candidates alphabetically
arranged, separately printed at the head of the list, and then all
the candidates for every district in the colony alphabetically
arranged. Let the voter, if he can make figures, mark his first
choice 1, his second 2, his third 3, and so on. If he cannot make
figures he may mark with one, two, three, or more crosses. It might
be allowable to give out model voting-papers, which might be filled
up at home, and copied accurately at the polling-place. Only the
voting-papers with the Poll Clerk’s initials could be
counted. But suppose the voter were to drop in the wrong paper; how
can we remedy that mistake? We really must trust something to the
common sense of the people. Or if a man were so stupid as to put
only one name in his list who could not make up his quota, he would
lose his vote. Yes, even if he put down two or three who were
unable to do it. “How very hard and unjust that is!”
say the advocates of the present system. Cannot we provide some
remedy for the blunders of the hopelessly stupid, as we have given
the ballot for the protection of the hopelessly cowardly? Political
Associations will take care that their men will not lose their
votes through too short a list, and other people must exercise
their own understandings.
Personally, I object to the ballot. As a member of
a large unrepresented class, I look upon manhood suffrage as a
trust, and not as a right; and none of the reasons which would seem
to require it in England apply to South Australia. I have never
seen a man who was bold enough to confess that he wanted the ballot
for himself—he only wanted to protect timid people who were
easily influenced. At the last election at the Burra the state of
the poll was known to a single vote before the ballot-boxes were
opened, which showed how the electors prized secrecy. The natural
sincerity and honesty of the people were too strong for their
institutions. Courage is one of the first elements of healthy
political action, and that machinery is best which best calls it
forth. But it is not at all necessary to disturb the ballot in
order to adopt Mr. Hare’s system, though in filling up a
vacancy there would be an advantage in having every man’s
name and residence on his voting-paper, so as to call out the
particular constituency that he represents. If it were not for the
ballot every man’s quota of votes could be tied up by itself
in a parcel with his name attached to it, and, in case of death or
retirement, every member of the constituency could get a circular
mentioning the rank which the late member held on his voting-paper,
and calling on him to make another choice—all the other
electors of the province being represented by the remaining
thirty-five members. The majority of this single constituency to
fill up the vacancy. Under the ballot we should be of course
obliged to appeal to the electoral district for which the retiring
member stood, or to take the man who was next to obtaining a quota
at the last general election. This is simply a question of detail,
and not the great difficulty which Mr. Glyde’s opponents
consider he cannot overcome. Because we cannot under the ballot
secure perfect equality in an occasional and exceptional case, are
we to sit down with manifest injustice at every general election?
Truly, no.
Let us now consider the plan in its working, and
first, in the canvass. I may quote, with very slight alteration, Mr
Hare’s observations in the article entitled,
“Representation of every locality and intelligence,”
contributed to Frazer’s Magazine, for April, 1860, page 533.
“It will be observed that every facility for action and
discussion which the present system affords, either to candidates
or to electors, will still exist. The new system adds to all the
means of discretion and effort, and takes nothing from them but the
temptations to which they expose the weak, and the power of the
many to extinguish the few. None of the present modes of popular
appeal in which there is a shadow of advantage, would cease.
Candidates would still address the particular constituencies in
which they were best known, or wherein they expected sympathy.
There would still be the same opportunity and occasion for personal
contact, There would, in the cases of the candidates who present
themselves to each constituency, be the same nomination, the same
public address, the same power of questioning the candidate; but
that address, and those answers, would be of a far higher and more
instructive character. It would no longer be mere verbiage,
containing more or less of plausibilities, designed to conceal,
rather than to express most of the thoughts of the speaker, and to
lead to inferences which it shall be open for him afterwards to
contradict or repudiate. In such free action the representation of
one man is not dependent upon the misrepresentation of another;
every one may be represented without extinguishing the judgment and
discretion of any of his brethren. The address of the candidate
then becomes a different thing from a fine spun web of mere
negations. If there be any earnestness of thought or purpose in
him, he does not suppress, but seeks to bring it into strong
relief. It expresses the work or the labour which he is designed to
do; and for which he is perhaps especially gifted. It is his work
in the world. Upon the sympathy of his countrymen or of enough of
them to form his constituency, he relies for his support, or his
success. He is not absolutely dependent upon the votes of the
majority in the particular place for which he offers himself; he
looks indeed for a measure of support there; but if necessary, he
falls back on the judgment of the electors at large. Instead of
concealing his true opinions, and feelings, he is provoked by the
strongest motives to proclaim them. His thoughts come from the
depths of his nature, through a sincere soul, which is a voice of
nature. His very peculiarity, or originality, if he possess any,
and if there be any worth in it, will be that which recommends
him.
“Not only will the speakers be earnest and
truthful in seeking to impart to their hearers the belief which
they themselves entertain; but even a greater change than this will
come over the constituent bodies—the hearers. When the
success or triumph of one man is no longer to be obtained by the
extinction or defeat of his neighbour, he will seek to participate
in his neighbour’s instruction and knowledge. Instead of
expelling from the district one candidate, in order to promote the
election of another, he will have the highest inducement to listen
to what every candidate has to tell him; and to learn from all
whatever is to be learned. No object can be gained by preventing
his fellow-electors from hearing the arguments of those who may
appeal to them for support; and still less is he likely to profit
by shutting his own ears. The election becomes a free interchange
of opinion, and a true intellectual combat. There may be in the
district many electors, whose endowments of mind, or special
training, or kinds of culture, have awakened sentiments or
opinions, different from those of any of the local candidates. For
this class of minds, there is ample field of choice in the
electoral Gazette or list of candidates for all districts of the
colony.
I cannot say whether the adoption of this system
would be of greatest advantage to majorities, or to minorities. It
is well when there is no dissatisfied, unrepresented class, in a
community; and it is not well to place so great an obstacle between
the sympathies of the propertied, and the non-propertied classes;
by giving all political power to the latter, and denying it to the
former. It is not well that political life should have no charms to
our wealthy and prosperous citizens, and that the young men of the
colony who are receiving such an education as should fit them to
serve their country, should have no scope for ambition except
through using their talents and education for the purposes of
timeserving and popularity hunting. But great as are the advantages
to minorities of having their votes freed, and their individual
powers of action made available, I think, the advantage to
majorities is no less.
In the first place, they can make sure of getting
bona-fide representatives. Those who hold different opinions can
appeal to different constituencies, and go in free; they are not
exposed to the strong temptation of colouring or concealing their
real thoughts, as the only means of getting into Parliament at all.
We hear that there is no need of a change in our electoral law, for
that there are men in the House of Assembly now, of every shade of
opinion. But every man whose opinions were different from those of
the populace, has had to submit to a lowering style of canvass, and
a cross-questioning—perhaps legitimate enough if minorities
were represented—but which under the exclusive representation
of majorities, weakens the moral sense of the candidate; and which
at every fresh election becomes more searching and exacting, more
unreasoning and unreasonable. I do not blame the majority for this;
it is the natural result of their being intrusted with supreme and
irresponsible power; but any change in our electoral law, which
would raise the tone of canvass, would be of the greatest benefit
to the colony. Under the system of equal representation, the
candidate can appeal from those who differ from him in his
particular district, to those who agree with him all over the
colony, and the more bold and candid he shows himself, the better
chance he would have of a general constituency.
The second advantage to the majority would be that
they would hear both sides of every question, that objections would
have to be met fully and fairly; and that questions would be
discussed in Parliament, in newspapers, at election meetings, and
public meetings generally, in a very different way from what takes
place now. A minority unrepresented is a sulky and useless thing;
going about continually with a grievance for which it has no
redress, unable to make its voice heard in Parliament, or at public
meetings, or its views fairly advocated by the press. A minority
represented, is the true sharpener of the wits of the ruling
powers, the educator of the people, the animator of the press. It
is the only strong and well organized opposition to government,
possible, under democratic institutions; without it, there may be
struggles as to who shall be out, and who shall be in; for so long
as there are such things as place and power, those who have not got
them will want to gain them, and those who have them will try to
keep them. But such opposition is factious and
obstructive—not constitutional and progressive.
It is not merely when the minority are in the right
that they can give such life and vigour to the body politic; right
or wrong, the genuine representatives of existing opinion are
always the friends of truth. We never believe anything so firmly as
when we have weighed the arguments against truth, and found them
fallacious; we never know the strength of our own convictions so
well as when an opponent whom we can neither silence or ridicule,
brings all the batteries of reason against them. And if the
minority should perchance be in the right, will it be well to
silence them, and lose the truth? There are many ways of losing
truth; one, is by persecuting it; another, is by not listening to
it; another, is by being too stupid to understand it. Persecution
has gone out of fashion; but inattention, and stupidity, are not
yet quite obsolete.
In the third and the commonest alternative, both
majority and minority may have a mixture of truth and error in
their opinions. Error is never so dangerous as when it is mixed
with truth, if it is not exposed to searching and free
investigation. In all discussions on the immigration question, for
instance, there are many sides to the argument. One man opposes
Government immigration because he wants to keep up the rate of
wages, and does not wish to be swamped by new comers; another,
because he thinks it pauperizes the people—who fancy that if
Government brings them out, it is bound to find work for them and
take care of them; a third, because it is impossible to keep them
after we have got them; a fourth, because it is a sort of
protection to capital, to bring out men with public money, to lower
wages; a fifth, approves of it in principle, but thinks it
unnecessary now, and hopes to get back some of our runaways from
Victoria, by the law of supply, and demand; another, because he
believes that everything done by Government is worse done and more
expensively done than by private enterprise—he would prefer
that those who want labour should import it for themselves, and be
protected in their bargains by legislative enactment.
The reasons for advocating the resumption of
immigration are equally various. The farmer wants to reduce wages
before harvest, and to raise prices afterwards by an influx of
people who are willing to work, and who must be fed; the builder
wishes to raise houses more cheaply, and to let them more readily;
the merchant hopes for increased traffic, both in imports and
exports, from increased population; the improver wants to try some
experiments in the more elaborate kinds of cultivation, and in some
branches of manufacture, which he thinks would pay if labour was a
little cheaper, and which he believes would prove a source of great
wealth to the colony; the corporations, and district councils want
facilities for local improvements; the philanthropist looks on the
beautiful country he lives in, and wishes it to afford a home and a
comfortable subsistence to some of the crowded millions of Great
Britain and Ireland, and to relieve the labour market there; while
the true-born Englishman thinks it unjust that we should have got
the full possession of our Land Fund from the Home Government, and
should determine to keep it all for ourselves, and not benefit the
mother country in the least.
Each of these arguments and objections contains a
portion of truth, but not the whole truth, and if one or two of the
opposing arguments are the only ones which are brought before the
public they lose the opportunity of weighing, comparing, and
judging, which the full and free discussion of the whole question
would give to them. We only arrive at truth by comparison, and the
wider the field that is given for comparison the greater are our
chances of making a wise decision.
Some may say that we will lose public spirit if we
give up the close individual contest in every locality; that it is
as much our duty to keep out men whom we do not like, as to bring
in men that we do. But every man does as much as he has a right to
do, if he himself chooses to the very best of his
judgment—leaving all his fellow-citizens to do the same.
Party spirit may diminish, but public spirit will be strengthened
and purified. What is the real public interest of an election
between A and B—conducted with noise or vehemence, which may
be decided by a bare majority of one, which all electioneering
tactics on both sides are directed to secure—compared with
the interest we should feel in knowing the real strength of the
opinions declared by A and B all over the colony accurately
ascertained.
We have been so long accustomed to exclude reason
from election meetings, and to hold that all is fair in
electioneering—so long in the habit of ignoring the national
love of fair play from the very subject which most calls for its
influence—that we have grown into the belief that such
drawbacks are inseparable from representative institutions
themselves, and that they are a part of the price we must pay for
freedom. It would be absurd, indeed, if people in their ordinary
life could thus blind themselves to the relations between cause and
effect. It is not the ascertaining of peoples’ opinions, but
the method we take to ascertain them, whereby one man’s
individual gain is another man’s individual loss, that
creates the bitterness and the injustice.
Just fancy a mother, who wanted a quantity of peas
shelled, setting all her children, young and old, to do it,
promising to give to the child who shelled the largest quantity the
reward of an apple. Suppose her disregarding all the cries for fair
play when Tom, the eldest boy, pulls the basket towards him, and
throws every obstacle in his power against his younger brothers or
sisters obtaining the pods from which to extract them. Fancy her
believing that by giving each child a measure containing an
imperial pint, stamped by authority, she has done all in her power
to equalize their chances of success; and then bestowing the apple
at last on the virtuous Tom, whose stronger nails had more easily
opened the pods, and whose vigorous arm had kept possession of the
basket; and fancy her saying when the disappointed competitors made
faces at Tom, as he munched his apple, and called him bully, cheat,
and sneak, that she did not understand how it was, but they always
quarrelled about the peas; that she did as her mother did before
her, in trying to stir up a little wholesome emulation, and took
more pains to give them dishes of the same size to fill, but yet
they grumbled as much as she recollected her brothers and sisters
did when she was a girl. She supposed that it must be something in
the peas.
By dividing the colony into electoral districts to
return two or more members, which is the rule at present with only
two exceptions, we secure to each locality at least one member, for
the majority in every district will be sure to prefer the local
candidate who best reflects the popular opinion. Whether or not the
district will return more than one will depend upon the kind of men
who come forward for it; but it would be a spur to induce every
district to look out for the best man obtainable, if it was felt
that by this means local influence might be increased. Local
interests are great; but general and national interests are still
greater. It is in the very nature of things that equality of
representation should weaken in some degree the exclusive and
mischievous power of the majorities in each locality, but at the
same time extravagant views of the importance of one locality are
as much against the rights of another locality as the most
cosmopolitan views whatever. For instance, the constituents of the
Burra and Clare want repairs on the North Road, and the three
members for that district offer a factious opposition to the
proposal to build a jetty in the South, because they apprehend that
if money is spent there it may not be forthcoming for northern
improvements. The advantage of a strong and interested advocacy is
counterbalanced by the drawback of a strong and interested
opposition. “But,” says the opponents of Mr.
Hare’s system, “the Burra and Clare ought to return
three members. How unjust it would be, if only two of the
candidates who have stood for that district are returned.”
Yet every individual elector of the Burra and Clare has a
representative sitting in Parliament, whom his individual vote
aided in placing there. If he had preferred a third-rate man in the
local list to a first-rate man out of it, he was free to do so.
There is no injustice done to the houses and land, if there has
been perfect justice done to the electors’ opinions and
feelings. It is the old English idea of borough representation that
has given this false notion of the paramount claims of local
interests; people have forgotten that the aim of representation is
to represent citizens—not cities.
Every candidate ought to be prepared to advocate,
as far as is consistent with his general principles, the interests
of the district for which he has been put in nomination. If it
should happen that a district should not have a member, it will be
in no worse position than that of Victoria in our present House of
Assembly, whose solitary member occupies the post of Speaker. He
finds no difficulty in getting another gentleman to take charge of
petitions, and to look after the local interests of Victoria; and
if there are any members too few for one district there will be as
many to spare in another, who will, I have no doubt, volunteer to
do all in their power for the district which preferred general
interests to local. It is quite possible to pay too high a price
for a representation exclusively local; the country loses more when
two stupid or two dishonest men are brought into Parliament than
the district does by having no local representative at all.
In the United States so great a value is attached
to local interests that no man can be a candidate for any
constituency in a particular State unless he is a resident in that
State. Thus the States generally are often deprived altogether of
the services of a man of talent and experience, and an additional
element of bitterness and rancour is infused into elections, when
the candidate knows that if he is disappointed there he has no
recourse elsewhere.
The objection which we hear most frequently raised
to Mr. Hare’s system of Equal Representation is that it is
troublesome and complicated. No doubt it is somewhat more
troublesome than the present system of counting votes at each
polling place in each constituency, and declaring who has the
majority, and how large it is. But it is by no means so troublesome
as people imagine. Let us look at what is done at the Post Office
every month on the arrival of the English mail, in sorting
thousands of letters, newspapers, and parcels; deciphering the most
illegible names and addresses; sending each letter, paper, and
parcel, to its respective address to every different local office
in the province; delivering at the window, and attending to the
general business of the Post Office at the same time. There is not
a Post Office Clerk in Adelaide, who would not laugh at the idea
that sorting 15,000 or 18,000 voting-papers, first counting them,
dividing the number by thirty-six, and then separating them into
their respective quotas of first votes; first-and second; first,
second, and third; and so on till they were all exhausted, was a
task too elaborate to be undertaken once in three years, to
ascertain the real state of public opinion, and to secure the
blessing of good Government.
Each Poll Clerk should send a digest of his votes
with the voting papers, to the Registrar’s office, in
Adelaide. They need scrutineers at any rate, and the central office
can act as scrutineers for the whole colony at once. It is the
unfamiliarity of the scheme that makes it appear elaborate. I have
no doubt that when it was first proposed to take a census, it
appeared to everybody to be a very troublesome and expensive
process. It certainly would be easier to count the houses, to
suppose that there would be about five inhabitants to every house;
that the number of the sexes would be about equal; and that there
would be about four or five children to every marriage, than to go
from house to house taking down the name, sex, age, and occupation,
of every individual inhabitant. The census is a very much more
troublesome and expensive affair than an election on Mr
Hare’s principle, but no one now thinks that the time and
trouble expended on it are too great.
I need not dwell here at any great length on the
strong arguments brought forward by Mr. Hare, and John Stuart Mill,
in favour of the adoption of this scheme in England; that they
would lessen the expenses of elections, and effectually check
bribery and intimidation, for the latter mischiefs can only be
brought into play in particular localities where the struggle is a
close one, and where the possession of a few votes would turn the
scale. I think that at present in South Australia our elections are
neither expensive nor corrupt. Yet we hear sad tales of conspiracy
to personate voters in the recent Victorian election; and we know
well that no ballot-box in the United States has been so cunningly
devised as to shut out corruption; no equalizing of electoral
districts has given anything like equality of rights to the
citizen, and we see the mournful spectacle of a great nation, which
during the last half century has improved in many other respects,
yet has degenerated in its political position. There is more power
in the nation, there may be more wisdom in the people; but there is
more corruption in the Legislature, and more oppression in the
Government. The numerical majority everywhere carry the day,
minorities are completely extinguished, and cannot exercise that
wholesome power as a check to tyranny and an educator of the people
which I have insisted on in these pages. Class interests reign
predominant, and the interest of one class alone is considered. The
payment of members is a temptation to third and fourth-rate men to
make political capital by trading in popular cries, and the abuse,
clamour, and unfairness of elections, combined with the
personalities of newspaper attack, prevent the wise, the noble, and
the worthy from offering themselves at all as candidates. Thus the
lowering influences act and react upon one another—the people
corrupt the press, the press misleads the people. The tendency of a
popular press under so-called Democratic institutions is to follow
rather than to lead public opinion—to watch the tide and take
advantage of it.
Our newspaper press here has, fortunately for us,
taken its model from the English, and not from the American, and it
at present holds a respectable position. Our two daily papers, with
their largely circulated weeklies, are well conducted, written in
good English, distinguished by freedom from libel or personality,
and by giving very full and fair reports of all public affairs. We
do not expect the talent of the Times in a small colony like this,
but if we would compare the Register or Advertiser with any
American newspapers published in the provinces of the United
States, or even with any of the New York journals, we could see at
once the superiority of our local press to the American. Yet it is
to save the press of South Australia from the deterioration which
it must suffer if all political power continues to be placed in the
hands of the uneducated and the slightly educated, that I would
plead for the safeguard of equal representation in the
Legislature.
In England free trade was opposed by the governing
classes—the aristocracy, who believed that their interests
were preserved by keeping out foreign produce. In America free
trade is opposed by the governing classes—the
people—who think that native industry wants protection; and
thus a great deal of capital and labour in the United States is
diverted from pursuits that would pay to those which cannot pay
without protection. Protection to the manufacturers of the North
was the price for which she made so many humiliating concessions to
the slaveholders of the South; and it has become so fixed an
opinion in the Northern States that protection is necessary and
beneficial that it is as dangerous to advocate free trade in the
one half of the Union as it is to preach abolition in the other.
That intelligent traveller, James Stirling, tells us that in a long
and extensive tour through the States in 1856 he did not meet with
more than three persons who understood the principles of free
trade, and they were Southerners. The Southern interests favour
free trade, and they have occasionally grumbled at having to buy
dear from New York what could be got so much cheaper from
Birmingham or Manchester—but those who live in glass houses
must not throw stones, and the two great questions of personal
freedom and commercial freedom have never been discussed in a
manner worthy of their importance in the free and enlightened
United States of America.
In the young days of American independence the
greatest and the wisest of the land took the lead in public
affairs. We know that such is not the case now, and those who cling
to the idea that universal suffrage and vote by ballot will insure
political freedom, are puzzled to account for the political
degeneracy of the United States. But universal suffrage and vote by
ballot may cheek freedom of discussion as effectually as a despotic
government. In no country is political discussion so free as in
England. It is, according to Tennyson—
“The Land where, girt with
friends or foes,
A man may speak the thing he will.”
The true born Briton may grumble at his
institutions, or his constitution, both by word and pen, House of
Lords—House of Commons— Monarchy itself. The Government
is not sharp to look out for or punish treason; public opinion is
healthy enough to be in no danger from the wildest theories, or the
most extravagant abuse of the powers that be.
But in France universal suffrage and vote by ballot
gave to the country the strong rule of Louis Napoleon, and free
political discussion is at an end; and the pseudo democratic
institutions of the United States have established the tyranny of
the majority, which has checked free political discussion. For all
the blunders, for all the injustice of the Government, no American
citizen ever dares publicly to blame the institutions—the
press is dumb, and dares not censure the sovereign people.
When people bring forward the reactionary power in
the British House of Commons to prove that the minority at one time
may shortly be the majority in turn, and tell us in South Australia
that we want no new theory of representation—an ounce of
practice being worth a ton of theory—they forget that we are
placed in a different position, and work up from a radically
different principle. It is because the British representation is so
anomalous that it has this power of reaction. The suffrage is
limited, the working classes exert a pressure out of doors, which
protects their interests, and the laws are made by a privileged
class of educated men. Our representation is uniform—not
anomalous; and it has been the observation of all men who look at
this subject seriously that the fatal drawback to so-called
democratic institutions is the difficulty of their reformation. It
is the governing body which need the reform, who are the only means
of initiating or carrying it out, and, as they will not believe
they are in fault, they have never set about it. In a pure
democracy, such as Mr. Hare’s system would lead us to, there
would always be an independent minority in the Legislature, and
from them we may expect watchfulness as to the beginnings of evil,
and boldness in opposing them, which would prevent the exclusive
sway of class feelings and class interests.
The true interests of one class are the true
interests of all; whatever presses hard on sayings, or realized
capital, tends to the withdrawal of that capital from the working
stock of the community, and will give less money to be paid as
wages for labour that will develop the resources of the colony. If
we were to give a fair representation to minorities we should give
the best guarantee in our power against the danger of unequal
taxation of capital, and against the risk of dishonesty in our
Government; and capital, enterprise, talent, and worth will
naturally flow to a colony which gives this security, in preference
to one where a dominant class interest swallows up all others. The
tendency of the recent Victorian elections will be to lower the
value of Victorian securities in the English market, and to raise
the rate of interest demanded for loans for Victorian public works.
The English capitalist has not forgotten the American repudiation
system, and high interest is the price that must be paid for
indifferent security.
Some of the laissez faire school of politicians may
shift the responsibility of judging of this question from
themselves by saying that this new scheme may be a very good thing,
but it will not answer here. I wonder what community it would suit
better. This is the most promising field for trying the worth of
first principles: we have no localities which have grown old in the
possession of what they consider vested rights in the power of
nominating representatives; we have no powerful wealthy class who
have an interest in keeping up the expense and the bitterness of
elections in order to limit the range of candidates; we have no
privileged class in possession of the suffrage who would oppose
this measure because it would certainly lead to its extension; and
we have not the force of ancient prejudices to overcome. Every man
in leaving the old country has left some of his ignorance and
prejudices behind him, and the people of South Australia are being
daily educated, by the mixture of races, by their material
prosperity, by the field given for honest ambition, by a free
press, and free discussion.
When Ridley invented the reaping-machine, no
attachment to the sickle of their forefathers prevented the farmers
from availing themselves of his discovery. When the League opposed
the Grant in Aid of Religion, no love of tithes and Church rates
bound the people to continue the connection between Church and
State, even on the most modified principles. When the Parliament
dispensed with Grand Juries, the people parted with them without a
sigh of regret. When we departed from the English rule that every
member of Parliament who accepted office in the Ministry should
stand a re-election before he could take his seat in the Cabinet,
we could see that the improvement was convenient, and we
congratulate ourselves in every change of Ministry in Victoria that
we have been saved the expense, worry, and loss of time that she
must submit to from conforming to the English custom. And when
Torrens brought forward the Real Property Act, we did not cling
affectionately to the long and expensive parchments of our
ancestors, but welcomed a change most beneficial in a community
where transfers of land are so frequent.
It may be said that these were economic changes,
and that therefore they appealed to the tenderest part of a
man’s frame—his pocket; but that a reform in our
electoral law, such as I propose, will save the colonists no money
immediately, and therefore cannot enlist their sympathy. Yet, even
on these low grounds, I think it may. Ridley’s machine cost a
large sum of money at first, yet the farmer was farsighted enough
to make the investment for the saving of yearly outlay; and that we
will have better government and cheaper government under equal
representation than under partial representation, a people so
shrewd as ours are quite capable of perceiving. Besides, I appeal
to the strongest sentiment of the Anglo-Saxon race—the love
of justice and fair play—and I appeal with confidence, not to
the minority who may differ from me in principle, but to the
majority who agree with me.
The man who believes that men are not equal, who
wants to have a property qualification, or an educational
qualification, may object to the absolute numerical fairness of
this plan; but from the people themselves, from the Political
Association, I expect and I claim sympathy and support. He who
honestly believes in political equality should do all in his power
to carry it into effect, and this is the only means of doing it. If
I ask the Political Association upon what principle of equality
they justify the arrangement by which if 1,999 citizens of Adelaide
hold one opinion and 2,000 hold another, the one man who turns the
scale virtually returns the six members for the City, they will
answer that it is to keep up the balance of power; that they expect
to be defeated in several constituencies, and therefore they must
use all the power that the law allows them in those in which they
have the predominance. But if it is proved by arithmetical
demonstration that if they have three-fourths of the
constituencies, they will have three-fourths of the
members—that if they have two-thirds of them, they will have
two-thirds—if five-sixths, they are sure of
five-sixths—under this new system, we will no longer hear
that injustice in one place is necessary to counteract injustice in
another, but that justice to all deprives them of no legitimate
power—only of the power of doing mischief to others. In
fact, I believe that elections conducted on the new principle would
make the majority in the House of Assembly stronger than it at
present is. But then the majority would be fairly ascertained, and
the minority perfectly independent.
It may appear to many well-meaning and theoretical
people that it would be advisable for educated, propertied,
talented, and virtuous men, to have more weight in the State than
the ignorant, the poor, the stupid, and the vicious. Property, they
imagine, wants protection; talent, education, and virtue, should be
encouraged; the world would be better governed if they had the
larger share in its representation.
But the State in a pure democracy, draws no nice
and invidous distinctions between man and man. She disclaims the
right of favouring either property, education, talent, or virtue.
She conceives that all alike have an interest in the protection of
good government, and that all who form the community, of full age
and untainted by crime, shall have a right to their share in the
representation. She allows education to exert its legitimate power
through the press; talent in every department of business; property
in its social and material advantages; virtue and religion to
influence the public conscience and public opinion—but she
views every man as politically equal—and rightly so, if the
equality be as real in operation as it is in theory.
If the equality is actual in the representation of
the citizens, truth and virtue being stronger than error and vice,
and wisdom being greater than folly when fair field is offered, the
higher qualities subdue the lower, and make themselves felt in
every department of the State, and especially in the political. But
if the representation from defective machinery or other cause is
not really equal, the whole balance is overthrown, and neither
education, talent, nor virtue, can work through public opinion to
have their beneficial influence on political matters.
We know that in despotisms and oligarchies, where
the majority are unrepresented, and the few extinguish the many,
independence of thought is crushed down—talent is bribed to
do service to the tyranny—education is confined to a
privileged class and denied to the people—property is
sometimes pillaged and sometimes flattered; even virtue is degraded
by lowering its field and making subservience appear to be patience
and loyalty, while religion is not unfrequently made the handmaid
of oppression—taxes fall heavily on the poor for the benefit
of the rich—and the only check proceeds from the fear of
rebellion.
When, on the contrary, the majority extinguishes
the minority, the evil effects are not so apparent. The body
oppressed is smaller—generally wealthier—with many
social advantages to draw off attention from the political
injustice which they suffer; but there is the same want of sympathy
between class and class—moral courage is rare, talent is
perverted, genius is overlooked, education is general but
superficial, the press and the pulpit are timid in exposing or
denouncing popular errors. An average standard of virtue is all
that is aimed at, and when no higher mark is set up there is great
fear of falling below the average; property is over-taxed, and the
minority exerts no physical force out of doors to induce the
lawmakers to care about their claims. Therefore it is incumbent on
all democracies to look well that their representative systems
really secure the political equality that they all profess to give,
for until that is done democracy has had no fair trial.
I speak of South Australia as a democracy, because,
though dependent on England—and all loyal subjects of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria—for all practical and social purposes,
our weal and woe are in our own hands. We got leave from the Home
Government to frame our own Constitution, and we framed it on
democratic principles, intending to give equality to every citizen.
But as no one had then heard of the system of representing
minorities in equal proportions with majorities, we did not embody
that improvement in our institutions.
As unfamiliarity is the greatest difficulty I have
to contend with, I will, at the risk of repeating myself,
recapitulate the provisions necessary to secure equality of
representation:—
1. That the power shall be given to minorities to
escape from the bounds of electoral districts, where they are
always defeated in detail, for without that they cannot have their
fair share of the representation; therefore, as the State can draw
no nice distinctions, every elector shall be at liberty to vote for
any candidate who may be nominated for any district in the colony,
thus exercising the judgment of each man by widening his
choice.
2. That every candidate who can obtain the
thirty-sixth part of all the votes given for all the constituencies
of South Australia shall be considered duly elected as a member of
a House of Assembly consisting of thirty-six members.
3. That as, if the state of the poll were known as
it goes along, no elector would vote for a man who already had
obtained sufficient votes to secure his return, it shall be open to
him to express on his voting-paper the course he would take in such
a contingency, so that the Registrar and Poll-Clerks may carry out
his wishes, as they see the position of each candidate disclosed in
sorting the voting papers; so that as a list is sent to a library
by a messenger to show what books the subscriber would like, the
first being preferred to the second, the second to the third, the
third to the fourth, so the elector shall make a list of say from
three to eight* names of men whom he would like to see in
Parliament in the order of his preference; so that if either his
first choice can get in without his vote, or is not popular enough
to make up the quota required, the elector shall not lose his vote
altogether, but fall back upon his second choice; if he too should
be over or under, the third shall be taken, and so on. The
difference is this, that if the book is popular it is pretty sure
to be out; if the man is popular, he is sure to be in.
4. That each man’s vote shall aid in the
return of one member. However long the list may be, the vote is
only appropriated to one; as, however long the subscriber’s
list may be, the messenger only obtains one book.
5. That in appropriating votes of the same rank in
the lists, local votes shall be preferred to those out of the
district, and the lists which contain few names shall be preferred
to those which have many.
* I think eight names would make a needlessly long
list; but there is no necessity for a rule to restrict the
voter’s choice. He may have a pleasure in shewing his good
will and marking the names of his favourites, even though it may be
useless.
From the popular press I demand on this important
subject either support or refutation. If I meet with
neither—if the criticisms are confined to remarks on the
style of writing, on the outward appearance of my pamphlet—if
they deal merely in quibbling details, such as the question whether
the member who was returned by a minority of Yatala and a number of
outside votes should be called the honourable member for Yatala in
Parliamentary speeches or the honourable member for No Man’s
Land,** leaving unchallenged or unsupported the principles from
which I start and the conclusions to which I arrive, I will be
constrained to admit that the mischiefs of our present
pseudo-democracy have penetrated deeper than I had imagined. If I
am accused of not going into every detail, I can only say that I am
not framing an Act of Parliament —I do not understand
Parliamentary formulas or proceedings. I am only trying to show the
principles on which an Act of Parliament should be framed. But if
the press fails me, I fall back upon the people, who are really the
masters of the press, and if they are moved, I have no doubt that
the press will follow.
** Even this little matter might be
settled by allowing members of the House of Assembly to call each
other by their names, as must be done in the Upper House. It is a
great inconvenience to ordinary readers to distinguish between the
six members for the City, and the three members for the Burra and
Clare, and the two members for other districts, and a trouble to
the newspapers to have to explain. If we make the Parliament
respectable, the language used in it will be respectful. But if we
have hit the spirit, we need not care about the form.
Politically speaking, I agree with the popular
orator, “One man is as good as another.” I only object
to the commentary of his Irish admirer—“Yes, that he
is, and better, too.” Yet, though political equality is
desirable, mental and social equality is not desirable, even though
it were possible. We know that if an equal distribution of property
were made to-day it would be unequal to-morrow. So long as men are
differently constituted and differently endowed, inequality of
condition is a necessary result. Supposing, however, that it were
possible to equalise the powers and faculties of body and mind; and
to impose upon all men an average health and strength, an average
intellect, and an average morality; and to educate the whole of the
people in an average unvarying system, so as to keep up this
equality — supposing that this impossible thing could be
done, would it be advantageous to our moral, mental, and national
development?
With no one fitted to lead, and no one inclined to
follow; with no one capable of discovering what inferior minds
could appreciate, and what others lower still could accept; with no
ambition, no magnanimity, no originality, no eccentricity; with no
opposition and no defence—the world would be a dull world,
and man would not make that progress for which he was intended by
his maker. It is the hope of rising either in wealth, in power, or
in knowledge, that is the great stimulant to wealth, to industry,
to energy, and to study.
The most frequently urged objection to the scheme
of equal representation is that we are sufficiently represented
already; and that for practical purposes minorities have a voice.
It may be through defects in the working of our present machinery,
or it may be because the majority are too intelligent, or too
indifferent to exercise the power which they undoubtedly possess of
silencing and extinguishing minorities. There is truth in this, but
just so much as to make it exceedingly dangerous. Whatever may be
the working of our present electoral law, no one can shut his eyes
to its tendency. Every fresh election will make the majorities more
aware of their power, more impatient of contradiction, more
arbitrary in their demands, more inclined to pay delegates than to
confide in representatives; and in the present state of political
knowledge, no more fertile root of corruption and mis-government
could be devised than to offer 36 prizes for the loudest declaimers
and the most adroit flatterers of the governing
classes—naturally, under universal suffrage, the least
educated classes, and the least qualified by reading and reflection
to rectify the statements of the popular orator.
It is because our Legislature and our newspapers
are at present so respectable, that I would press the consideration
of the subject now. We know that if the measure of reform were
imperatively demanded by the exigencies of the time and place, it
would be impossible to carry it. It is not from a people who have
plunged themselves into every variety of blunder, and who have
lowered the tone of political knowledge and political morality so
fatally as to render it impossible for truth and justice to obtain
a hearing, that a great measure of constitutional reform is to be
expected.
And South Australia appears to be marked out for
the initiating of this greatest political improvement of modern
times. Mr. Hare, in Frazer’s Magazine for February, 1860, in
his article on “Representation in Practice and Theory,”
thus mentions this colony:—
“The earliest conception on
record of a system of representation based on a recognition of the
varieties of opinion within the same constituency, is believed to
be in a paper suggesting a plan for the establishment of municipal
government in South Australia. It is said to have proceeded from
Mr. Rowland Hill, the Secretary of the Colonization Commissioners.
It recommends that the election of Town Councils shall be by
voluntary classification of the electors into as many equal quorums
as there are members to be elected; and that each of these who can
agree upon an unanimous vote, shall return one member.”
“Ignorant of Mr. Hill’s
suggestion, the contributor of this paper, in 1857, published a
scheme of parliamentary representation founded on a similar
principle. In single towns when the state of the poll is known by
the voters as the election proceeds, this plan presented no
difficulty; but in parliamentary elections it afforded no
convenient, perhaps no practicable, means of dealing with the vast
number of surplus votes which would be given for popular
candidates.” (Mr. Hare’s complete plan was not
published till two years later.—See a Treatise on the
Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal, by Thomas
Hare, Esq., Barrister-at-Law; Longman’s, 1859—in which
every contingency likely to occur in the United Kingdom is provided
for.)
The scheme of Mr. Hill’s alluded to above was
not only laid before the Commissioners, but actually carried out in
the first election for the Municipal Corporation, and two
councillors were returned by two quorums. In one instance the
workmen in Messrs. Borrow & Goodiar’s yard combined to
elect their foreman as their representative, and another quorum of
citizens chose a councillor for themselves.
As the power of combination was optional, and as
the citizens generally preferred to vote for all the council
instead of plumping for one, the division into quorums was never
again carried out, and after the extinction of the old corporation,
when another Act was passed to reconstruct a municipal body, the
original idea was lost sight of and forgotten. It is a pity that
such was the case, for if there had been a provision for
representing minorities in the corporation, it would not only have
improved the municipal body in the first place but it would have
familiarized the public with the idea that it was practicable.
The next conception of giving some power to
considerable minorities was broached in the Edinburgh Review, and
embodied by Lord John Russell in one of his Reform Bills, to divide
the country into constituencies to return three members, and to
prevent the electors from voting for more than two. This measure
was lost by the factious opposition of the Conservatives, who did
not appreciate the scope of the idea. It is an approximation to a
true principle of representation of great value; but unless the
voter is allowed to give his two votes for one man it does not
secure the return of one member for a unanimous third part of the
constituency. By splitting votes the majority can increase their
power. For instance, in a constituency composed of 900 electors who
come to the poll, we will suppose that 600 belong to the majority,
and 300 to the minority. The majority put up three members A, B,
and C, the minority combine to return D. The result of the poll may
be this by skilful tactics on the part of the majority:—200
vote for A and B; 200 vote for B and C; and 200 for A and C. Thus
the 600 voters give to each of their three men 400 votes, and the
minority of 300 cannot get in their man. If each only voted for one
man, the principle would be better. But I cannot say that this
principle is at all equal to Mr. Hare’s; for minorities of a
smaller number than a third have a right to their share in the
representation. It is no more just that a fifth or a sixth of the
people should be unrepresented than that a third; and I think, that
minorities down to a thirty-sixth, have a right to a share of
thirty-six representatives. Another advantage of Mr. Hare’s
scheme over this of Lord John Russell’s is that, by the
latter, the contests would be exclusively local, and that every
vote taken from one man would be looked on as a gain by another,
and so that the electioneering tactics would not be so much
elevated as we hope to make them by Mr. Hare’s plan. But the
main objection is that it would not give equality of
representation; it is not pure democracy, and it is for pure
democracy that we contend. “Democracy,” says John
Stuart Mill, “according to its definition, is the government
of the whole people by the whole people equally represented.
Democracy, as commonly conceived and hitherto practised, is the
government of the whole people by a majority of the people
exclusively represented. The former is synonymous with the equality
of all citizens; the latter, strangely enough confounded with it,
is a government of privilege in favour of the numerical majority,
who alone possess practically any voice in the state.”
I wish that we in South Australia may take the
proud stand of being the first democracy that would clear up this
confusion of ideas, and set about in earnest to the task of
reforming itself, and thus wipe off the reproach so liberally
bestowed on democracies, that they are incapable of reform. Let us
show the example of being the first community who can appreciate
the ideas of the most advanced thinkers in Europe, and within less
than three years from the first broaching of the scheme, give it
the most careful and impartial consideration.
We kindle with enthusiasm at the example of such
men as Washington, and Garibaldi; who, after having freed their
country, and won the confidence of their fellow-citizens, have
disdained selfish aggrandisement and retired to the obscurity of
private life, when they were no longer needed in the active service
of their country. We feel that the whole world is the better for
such instances of individual heroism and unselfishness. But
another, and a still rarer example it is left for South Australia
to show—that if a people, who, entrusted with the framing of
their own laws, and already invested with absolute political power
upon the principle of majorities ruling, can voluntarily divest
themselves of it and submit to the check of the equal
representation of minorities; upon the conviction that, such
exclusive power as they at present possess is unjust in principle
and mischievous in tendency, Thus would they show a path for the
civilized world towards the safe extension of the suffrage to its
widest limits; thus would they prove by their noble abnegation of
the sole power that majorities are worthy to be entrusted with the
supreme power in the State.
Printed at the Register and Observer
General Printing Offices, Adelaide
THE END
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