Commons Chamber

Order for Second Reading read.

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

In rising to move the Second Reading of this Bill, I am glad to think that I am advocating a measure which has supporters in all the parties in this House, and which has a very large measure of support among educated opinion all over the country. I am also glad to think that it is a Bill which, although slightly different from the last Bill introduced on the subject, is one which has been discussed for a considerable number of years, and about which, therefore, public opinion is instructed. I suppose we all agree that the object of a general election is to get the opinions of the electors who vote in that election reflected in the House of Commons. I cannot think that there is anyone in this House who denies that that is the main and governing principle of a general election Therefore, the representative system under which we live has to be judged, and in my opinion should be judged alone, upon the basis of whether it gives us the best and most accurate representation of the voters who vote at a General Election.

Let us test the existing system in that way by taking various elections between 1885 and 1910. I will not trouble the House with them all, but only with some of them. What I want to point out, in regard to these elections, is that the majorities of seats which the parties gained at those elections bore no relation to the votes which were cast for these parties at the General Elections. In 1885 the Liberal party were returned with a majority in this House of 158. If the votes that were cast at that election had been of equal value, the Liberal majority would not have been 158, but 86. In the following year there was another general election, and the Conservative party were returned to this House with a majority of 104. Supposing that each vote had had the same value, the Conservative Party would not have been returned at all, but the Liberal party would have been re- turned with a majority of 8. In other words, at that election the actual majority of votes in the country did not produce the Government for which they were given, but the minority of votes prevailed. In 1892 there was not much difference. The Liberal majority was 44, whereas under true representation it would have been 34. In 1895 the Conservative majority was 150, while if there had been true representation it would have been 12. All the other instances of General Elections show more or less similar results.

I now want to show how indefensible the system is from the point of view of the majority which the Government has in this House really resting upon the same proportion of votes in election after election. Let me make that rather more plain. In the year 1885 the Liberal party were returned with a majority of 158, but they had a majority in the country's votes of 560,000. When the Conservatives went in in 1886 with a majority of 104, there was at that time an actual Liberal majority of votes of 54,000. In that case, therefore, there was a majority of votes in the country which was not able to return even a majority of Members here in favour of its own party. There is case after case of that kind, and you never get the same value for the votes which have been cast. At one moment there is a large Conservative majority and a small general majority in the country, while at another moment there is a small Liberal majority in this House and a large Liberal majority in the country. The present system does not give an accurate reflection of the opinion of the country, and it does not enable the voters in this country to see that they have in this House Members who really proportionately represent their views. It seems to me to be a very grave reflection upon our present system that we have all the time, election after election, an absolutely inaccurate result as the result of all the trouble and expense of an election. You have, perhaps, one of the most glaring illustrations of the inadequacy of the present system if you look at the position of the Conservative party now and in 1922. In 1922 they got rather fewer votes than in 1923. But in spite of that fact, and in spite of the fact that they got millions fewer votes than the other two parties combined, they had a majority in this House. Who can defend a system under which a party which only polled a minority of the votes by millions less than the majority can get back to the House with a majority of 90 over all parties? In 1923 the Conservative party polled more votes, and with the gamble and flukiness of the present system they are 90 seats behind the other two parties combined, [An HON. MEMBER: "Very hard lines!"] I am glad I have struck a cord of sympathy in the hon. Member's breast and I trust he will feel that there is a pretty good case for the Bill I am introducing. I think those facts at least will convince the most determined defender of the system that is is1 not successful in producing results which a general election ought to produce.

If one goes from the general to the particular and takes individual cases, I understand the fortune of the political situation is going to deny me the votes of members who sit for Labour seats in Scotland, and other parts as well, and I may as well show what the position of the Labour party in Scotland is. At the last election there were 66 contested elections in counties and burghs and 1,500,000 votes were cast. Of that total the Labour party got only 557,000, but they have secured 34 Members out of the 66. In other words 37 per cent. of the total poll has given them a majority of seats in the contested elections of Scotland. I will now give instances in England. At Birmingham the Liberal and Labour parties have not had the privilege of a Member in this House for nearly two generations. I hope hon. Members will give me credit for taking instances of each party's history without the smallest attempt to show that one party has suffered more than another. At the last election 149,000 voters voted for the Conservative party, 78,000 for the Labour party and 28,000 for the Liberal party. The 148,000 Conservative voters were able to return 11 conservative Members and the whole of the Liberal and Labour parties in that great city are entirely unrepresented. In Cornwall at the last Election there were 73,000 Liberal voters, 41,000 Conservative and 3,000 Labour. The 73,000 Liberal voters have secured the hole representation of Cornwall, and all the Conservative voters are therefore unrepresented. In my own county of Gloucestershire at the last Election two Liberals were returned, one Conservative and one Labour. The total Conservative poll was 46,000 and it only returned one Member. But the 31,000 Liberal voters have two Members. It is not for me to say they are not excellent Members but the fact remains that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and I represent 15,000 voters each while the hon. Member who represents Cirencester represents, having regard to the total poll, 46,000— three times as many votes as I or my hon. Friend do. In other words we have all the trouble of a General Election and we do not get in my opinion, or I think in the opinion of anyone, an accurate result for our trouble and our expenditure.

Let us examine how this result is obtained and why the present system is responsible for it. Assume an average electorate of 35,000 voters and take a case where one party is in a large majority over the others—A party 20,000 votes, B 10,000 and C 5,000. As far as that constituency is concerned and as long as the voters remain in that proportion A will outvote the other two parties combined for ever and ever. If you multiply what happens in that constituency by about four hundred, because there are 400 straight fights in the country, and in 400 fights there is a large or a small majority, in all those 400 fights you have this result, that while 400 members are elected by the votes of those constituencies, almost as many votes have been cast for the opponents of those 400 members and all those who voted for their opponents are unrepresented here. [An HON. MEMBER: "As they ought to be."] I do not agree and I will show why I do not agree. See what proportional representation can do for a constituency of that kind. Assume that you put five constituencies into one for the purpose of an election. Multiply your 5,000 by five and you get 175,000. If you multiply A with its 20,000, B with its 10,000 and C with its 5,000, you get 100,000 A, 50,000 B and 25,000 C and by that means you enable members to represent all those parties. You get fair and equitable representation by taking the larger area. That seems to me satisfactory. It seems to me desirable that you should, where you can, by an alteration of your system which is fair, try to get members of Parliament for the voters. You have to remember that whereas the 400 members who get straight fights are majority members you have over 200 members in the House who are not majority but minority members. It is true that at this moment members of this House are not really representing a majority of votes in this country. They are representing a minority of votes in this country. What an extraordinary reflection upon general elections which have taken place for the purpose of getting members of Parliament returned to represent the electors, that at the end of it all the people you have here do not represent the majority of the voters. It is an extraordinary thing that we have submitted to it for so long and I cannot help feeling that all parties are equally anxious that we should get this House more representative. We can only do that by a more scientific way of adjusting our elections.

Hon. Members who recollect previous Bills will observe some alteration in this Bill. This is not a Bill of the Proportional Representation Society but is drawn up by those, like myself, who whilst we believe in Proportional Representation also want to try to deal reasonably with all the difficulties which at the beginning are certainly in the way of complete Proportional Representation. We provide in this Bill that where you have sparsely populated areas, purely agricultural areas, you can go on with the present system, and are not bound to have Proportional Representation. In the First Clause, the Bill provides that every elector shall have one transferable vote. In that transferable vote if you have a single member division—the Bill provides for as many of these as the Commissioners who make the scheme and as Parliament in its good wisdom likes—you will have really an alternative vote. You will have a single transferable vote as between the two or three candidates who may stand for one seat. Therefore, those who feel that people, like myself, who want Proportional Representation are desirous of trying to ride rough shod over the whole of Great Britain will appreciate the fact that we want to try to meet the difficulties which are in the way, and that where we have a large area to cover and the difficulty of combining the constituency is great, we want to deal sympathetically with that position and allow it to go on as at present, but giving a transferable vote to the constituents.

Clause 2, Sub-section (2), lays it down that Commissioners shall be appointed for the purpose of preparing a scheme, and that scheme shall provide for certain constituencies being combined into single constituencies returning not less than three nor more than seven members, probably three in the case of counties and five or seven in the larger cities. It provides that there shall not be any increase in the present number of members. Further, the scheme is to be laid before Parliament—Parliament, of course, retaining the completest powers of amending the scheme, so that the scheme when it ultimately becomes law will represent the will of Parliament. Clause 3 provides for the framing of regulations prescribing the method of voting and of transferring and counting votes. Clause 4 lays it down that the election expenses of the candidate shall be no more than they are at the present time, but exactly the same amount.

What about by-elections?

There is no Clause dealing with by-elections. That, of course, will have to be dealt with, but I prefer to allow the Committee to deal with that point. As compared with the general question of the disenfranchisement under our present system of millions of voters who have no Members here to represent them at all, the mere question of a by-election which deals with 50,000 or 100,000 voters is a very small matter. Of course, the question of by-elections will be and must be dealt with, but we have not dealt with it in the Bill, because we prefer to leave it to the Committee to deal with having regard to the various methods which have been used in foreign countries for dealing with the question.

It is often said by people who defend the present system, that if you have not a representative in one place you have a representative in another place, that if certain Conservatives in Cornwall cannot get a member to represent their opinions a Conservative returned for Birmingham will represent them. I was born in a constituency in West Dorset which has had a Conservative member ever since 1885. What is the good of telling the people in West Dorset who have voted Liberal and Labour consistently for 40 years that in Wales there is some place where the Conservatives can never get a member returned to represent them, and that the Liberal member in Wales will do his best for the Liberal and Labour voters in West Dorset who cannot get a member to represent them in their own constituency? That is a denial of justice. It is wrong that in West Dorset a Liberal or Labour member can never be returned, and it is wrong that a Conservative can never be returned in the particular constituency in Wales. Two wrongs do not make one right, but they do make a case for reform. It is that case for reform which is submitted in this Bill.

Let me take some of the objections which are advanced. There is the objection, that the Government majority will be small and that the Government will be unstable. Is that argument going to be urged to-day, having regard to the fact that our present position has been attained under our present system? He will be a brave man who will suggest that our present system secures stable government and large majorities. I want a system to be stereotyped that will give to the electors the largest possible number of representatives in this House, whether we have large or small majorities in the House. The one thing to achieve is that the man who votes is going to have a member, whether we get large majorities or small majorities in this House. There is no certainty that the present system will give large majorities; it may give small majorities. It is purely a fluke and a gamble whether it gives large or small majorities.

Are large majorities altogether a good thing? I think large majorities are a bad thing. I have been a Member of Parliament for nearly 20 years, and I have been a Member of a Party which had a Government with an enormous majority. You have a right and left wing, and as a result there is unnecessary vacillation on the part of the Government, throwing something to the lambs one day and something to the wolves the next day, afraid of their die-hards, and wanting to look after the people who wanted to stay in office. You do not get from large majorities really a satisfactory Government.

Another argument which is used more often than any other is partly sentimental and partly selfish, and that is the position of the Member who says:" I have been a member for my constituency for many years. I know my own people and they know me. We like each other and we do not want to be parted. We do not want any new fangled scheme." When he says that, has he in mind the people who voted against him? Has he ever heard that the 5,000, 10,000 or 15,000 votes which were given against him are the votes of people who were so pleased with the man they had tried to keep out that they love the system under which he will always be in? If he asked them they would say that they did not like the system. The present system may make it easier for the older member who does not like change. Of course, we older members know our constituents and our constituency, and it is much easier always to go the same way, but if I were to ask all my Conservative opponents, who for twenty years have been trying to keep me out of this House, and have only once succeeded for a few months in doing so, whether they like the present system which prevents them getting a Conservative member returned, they would say they do not like the system. I do not think a Member has a right to put his personal convenience against what is really an essential change in our electoral system, if justice is to be done. His personal convenience must give way when a great reform is in question.

It is seriously stated that this system will divorce Members from their constituencies. That is a total mistake It is said by people who do not understand what is proposed: If you put three constituencies into one and you have three members elected for that constituency the three candidates of a particular party before the election could allocate themselves how they will work for education and other purposes in each of the three constituencies in that enlarged area, and when the election is over there will be done there what is done elsewhere. You will allow by your regulations the member returned by the largest majority to select the particular Division to which he wants to be allocated, so that he will be known as the hon. member for so-and-so, and not as the hon. member for the whole enlarged constituency of three or four members. [ Laughter. ] Hon. Members may smile, but what is the difficulty of doing it?

What will he do in a seven-member constituency? What chance is there for an independent man?

An independent man in a large area will have a far better chance than in a small area. That hardly requires argument. It is clear that when you have got a small area with one ordinary constituency the party caucuses can make the candidature of the independent man impossible, but if you enlarge your area let the man be known by his work in the county and in the country and let public opinion get to work in his favour in that larger area, and the independent candidate will always have a far greater chance of success. Questions are asked as to the expenses of the candidate. The expenses will be put down as the exact amount which a man is now able to spend. [An HON. MEMBER: How can he fight the whole area?] This Bill does not propose to deal with every detail of the future management of a system of proportional representation. This Bill lays down a great principle in a very few words, and the progress of a Measure which attempts to give representation to millions of voters who are now unrepresented surely is not to be defeated by saying "how is the independent candidate to find enough money?" or "will he be able to spend enough money?" Then it is said that the system is complicated and cannot be understood, and that there will be difficulties in voting, and spoiled votes. Anyone who says that does not know that in Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, Denmark, Holland, New South Wales, the Irish Free State and in many provinces of Canada the thing has been done for some time. To say that our English, Scotch and Welsh voters are not capable of doing what the voters in these countries have done is to say something which no Britisher is going to believe.

Has the hon. Member any idea of the number of spoiled votes in this country?

I have not got the statistics with me, but I think that during the day figures will be given on that point. In the case of by-elections, you have got to deal with the possibility of one of four Members in an enlarged constituency either dying or resigning. You can deal with it in many ways. You can deal with it, first of all, by polling for all areas. That is not a way which I should advise. In a very large area it would be expensive, though, from the point of view of showing the way in which public opinion is going, in one sense the larger the area the better. Another method is by polling the particular Division to which the Member was allocated after the election was over. That is an easy way of doing the thing, and enables one portion of the total area to be polled in the ordinary way which is followed now. A third way of dealing with the matter is to do what the electors wanted to do at the previous election, and allow the next man on the poll to become the Member. That may be a new idea, but new ideas permeate, and I am, personally, rather in favour of that method of dealing with it. It is being done in foreign countries to-day, and at least you have got the expression of the opinion of the electorate quite plainly. Then if a man resigns or dies you can co-opt or you can leave the vacancy.

I beg hon. Members not to allow difficulties of machinery to come in the way of the larger consideration of the whole question. I repeat that you have got millions and millions of voters in this country to-day with no Member in this House. Is that a system which you can defend? Suppose when we have a general election we say to every hundred electors, "fight it out." In four oases out of six they proceed to fight it out in a straight fight. There are two candidates and one gets 51 votes and another gets 49 votes. The fifty one voters out of a hundred have got a Member to represent them in Parliament and the 49 are disfranchised for the duration of the Parliament. In 200 cases they proceed to fight it out in a three-cornered fight and 35 out of the 100 voters return a Member to Parliament and 65 out of the hundred return no Member to Parliament and they are disfranchised for the duration of the Parliament. Those are plain facts which are uncontrovertible. Multiply the hundred in each of these cases by millions and you see the want of representation of great masses, in this Parliament the majority of the electorate of this country. From the conversations which I have had with hon. Members, the first thing they seem to think of is "how will this affect me?" and the next question is "how will it affect my constituents?" and the last question is "how will it affect the country and the British constitu tion and how will it help to strengthen the Mother of Parliaments?" If it be, as I believe it to be, our duty to see that this House of Parliament is the mirror and the reflection of the voter, then there is no other plan propounded which can compare with the system of proportional representation advocated under this Bill.

I beg to second the Motion.

I realise that in doing so I suffer under the inevitable handicap of a Seconder, in that the cream of the argument was taken by the Mover, and, to use a mixed metaphor, that leaves me merely the task of dotting the is and crossing the t's, and possibly underlining, by way of emphasis, some of the arguments. In discussing a matter of this sort, which has been a matter of controversy for years in many countries, we ought to realise that there are two sides to the case. It is no good any of us shutting his eyes to that fact. What we have to try to do is to reason and to balance the arguments one against the other, and then to come down on the side on which we think there is the greater argument in the interests of the good government of the country. In making a change of this sort it is necessary that the balance of argument should be strong, and I maintain, in regard to this Bill, that the balance of argument is very strong. In a change of any kind the proposers have to prove three things; the onus of proof is upon them. They have to prove that the present system is evil; they have to prove that there is a practical remedy; and they have to prove that in removing the evil they are not bringing in other evils, that in getting rid of the evil they know of they are not bringing in the evils they know not of.

With regard to the first proposition, that there is something wrong with our present system, I think that ought to be universally admitted. We have 200 minority Members in this House at the present time. We are always under the imminence of having a clear majority in this House representing a minority in the country. That is the very opposite of true democratic principles and rule by the majority of the people. With regard to the practical remedy, no one can seriously argue that this proposal, which has been brought into practice in many parts of the world and which has proved successful in the vast majority of cases where it has been tried, is not a reasonable and practicable remedy. But I want chiefly to deal with the evils that we are supposed to be about jump into if we make this change. The Committee who have organised their opposition to proportional representation have been good enough to issue a pamphlet containing 10 points. I want to deal with those 10 points and to analyse them. They fall into three sections—those dealing with the Members themselves, those dealing with the electors, and those dealing with the general principle.

Let us, first of all, take the personal question of how it affects Members themselves. The objection is divided into the question of cost, the size of the constituency, and personal touch. Take cost first. Cost does not necessarily increase in ratio with the number of electors. If you look back only a few years, to the time when the number of electors was infinitely smaller than it is now in any constituency, you will find that the cost then was infinitely greater. The cost is what Parliament declares it shall be. There are many ways in which cost has been alleviated in the past by reducing the amount of lawful expenditure and by the State coming in and paying various portions of the inevitable expenditure. Cost can be what Parliament makes it. On the question of the size of the constituency and the fear that Members have that the Bill will put upon them an impossible task, let me say this. The work that a Member does, does not necessarily vary in arithmetical ratio with the size of his constituency. The late Lord Courtney was either a member or a candidate for three different Divisions of entirely different types. First of all, there was the little borough of Liskeard, in Cornwall, with only 700 electors. Then he represented a large county constituency in South-East Cornwall, and he also sat for one of the Divisions of Edinburgh. He said that, so far as hard personal work was concerned, the small borough of Liskeard was far harder to work than the others, for the reason that, as there were only 700 electors, he was expected to visit and chat with and argue with every one of them.

In the large constituencies that we have now, such a thing is perfectly impossible, and for a candidate to attempt a personal canvass of 30,000 electors is really a waste of energy which might very easily be used in a better way. Then there is the question of the size of constituencies. If we go back in history we find that, as far as area is concerned, we have had constituencies very much larger than anything that is proposed under Proportional Representation. Take, for instance, the old battle-ground of the West Riding of Yorkshire, which had two Members. The candidates were able to cover that area and to conduct the elections in days when they had to get about on horseback and by stage coach. Now, over a small fraction of that area, a candidate could surely do the same thing by means of the modern train and motor car. What it comes to is this, that an energetic candidate—most candidates who want to get into Parliament have to be energetic nowadays—puts in the whole of his time as it is, and is not able to do any more. Therefore it is impossible to increase the burden upon him.

As far as the electors are concerned, they would have, under this Bill, quite as much opportunity of attending meetings, because the total number of candidates standing would be as many as or probably more than are standing in a given area now. I realise, however, that there are certain parts of the country where, owing to very great distances and other causes, it is not practicable at the moment to bring in Proportional Representation Personally, I would be opposed to any two member constituency, because you are up against the difficulty that unless in a two-member constituency the majority party has a two to one majority, it simply means a division, and the majority is equal to the minority. Two-member constituencies are not reasonable or practicable because the system does not make for majority rule. I would, therefore, like to see, as far as is practicable, the country divided into five member and three-member constituencies, and, where that cannot be done, to keep the present system of one-member constituencies.

A word about personal touch. This is a matter on which some of my friends feel very strongly. I do not know exactly what personal touch means; it can be defined in many ways. First of all there is the question of dealing with grievances, pensions cases, the troubles of Government Departments, and so forth. There will be just as many Members to do the work, because the Bill proposes that there shall be as many Members as there are now. There is another aspect of the personal touch, namely, in connection with the attending of conferences and shows and the opening of bazaars and such things. If Proportional Representation would be the means of minimising that kind of personal touch I would support it even more earnestly than I do now. As a matter of face it would not do so, because the opportunity of attending these functions would be just as many and there would be just as many Members to attend them. Some Members realise that they may have, possibly, 50 football clubs in their constituency, and each of the clubs personally "touches" them for so much. They multiply that number of football clubs by three or five, and they are appalled at the result. They may realise also that there are in their con stituency each year a large number of roofs that leak and heating apparatuses that get out of order in various places of worship. They multiply this number of defective roofs and they say," Here my personal touch again will be needed to put on these slates or to mend this apparatus."

Under Proportional Representation we should get rid of that kind of personal touch, because when a Member is not fighting for a bare majority—he has to get only a quarter of one-sixth, plus one, in a five-member constituency—he will be able to be a little more courageous and to sit down and write "No," or to stand up and say "No," to proposals with which he has not personal sympathy. I come to another kind of personal touch. There is the strong local candidate with a good record. He would be immensely improved under Proportional Representation. I will take one instance from each of the three parties. We will take for instance, the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Sir C. Wilson). However Leeds is divided, I am perfectly certain that hon. Member would be certain to be returned by Conservative votes in Leeds, although for very many years Leeds was without any Conservative representative at all.

I take as another instance the hon. Member for the Attercliffe Division of Sheffield (Mr. Cecil Wilson) a local man with a good local record, who would be certain of his quota however the City of Sheffield is divided up, whereas only two years ago and for four years the particular constituency which he represents was represented by a Liberal. If I may come to one instance from the Liberal Party I may take the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Acland) who under Proportional Representation in Devon would be assured of his quota. Now he has to be satisfied with getting first past the post by the hairs on the end of his nose. The last point which I make in connection with personal touch relates to its value. There are many Members who conscientiously do their duty to the best of their ability and to the utmost of their energy and who believe their personal touch in their constituencies and their attention to the electors is of value to the electorate and of value to their party in enabling them to retain their seats. So it is to an extent, and I do not wish to hurt them by hinting that possibly they may be deceiving themselves, but with what percentage of the electorate as a whole do they really get into personal touch? What percentage of the electorate, as a whole, really do appreciate their services?

12 N.

Do not let them be deceived by the loyal, affectionate and enthusiastic support of their friends and supporters. They probably represent only a fraction of the whole. Put up against them, even in their own constituencies where they have worked loyally, a popular cry, a plausible and unscrupulous opponent and then under our present system some mass wave of misrepresentation or popular feeling may sweep them away; their loyal and able services may go for nothing and their political career may come to an end for the time being at any rate. I give one instance of that which is very striking. The present Lord Daryngton, then Mr. Pike Pease was turned out of Darlington, his own town, which he had served faithfully and loyally, by a notorious gentleman named Trebbitch Lincoln. I have dealt at some length with the question of personal touch because I know it is one on which Members feel strongly. I hope I have shown that what is best in personal touch can be retained, and what is worst will be diminished. Even if I have not convinced hon. Members of this, it is perfectly possible, as the Mover has shown, under Proportional Representa- tion, to allot a particular part of the constituency to each of the Members who are returned for the whole. I only want to refer briefly to the question of the difficulties of the electors. This pamphlet deals with three points—that the electors would be confused, that they would need instructing and that they would not vote because of mistrust. I admit the counting is difficult, and to a certain extent complicated, but we can produce this convincing argument and proof that in no case has any election under Proportional Representation been spoiled or had to be taken again, because of any mistake in the count. That is an absolutely incontrovertible fact. With regard to the capacity of the electors I think what is possible for the electors of Ireland, will not be beyond the intelligence of the electors of Great Britain. The Mover was challenged with regard to the percentage of spoilt papers and since that challenge, I have been able to ascertain that in Northern Ireland the percentage of spoilt papers was 1 per cent. while in Southern Ireland, the percentage was 3 per cent. over the whole country and in the County Dublin 2·2 per cent. In Malta, which one might be inclined to regard as a rather backward sort of place it was less than 1 per cent. That shows that in what one might regard as not probably the most highly educated countries, the percentage of spoilt papers is not very great. I want to deal now with some of the points in this pamphlet which refer to the general principles of the Bill, and with its actual merits from the point of view of the good government of this country. Point No. 4 states that it will allow the largest party or caucus, to organise against all the other parties. Point No. 7 states that it will allow all kinds of cranks to come into Parliament on the minority vote. These two statements absolutely contradict each other and I ask the hon. Members responsible for this pamphlet to select for themselves the particular horn of the dilemma on which they are going to impale themselves.

A far more serious argument is that Proportional Representation will render less likely a strong Government with a good working majority. This is a serious question because it goes to the whole base of the government of the country. I admit that a strong govern- ment, with a good working majority is undoubtedly desirable, but there is this qualification—if it has a majority of the electors behind it. Is it desirable when it has not such a majority? That is the point. I think the essence of good government is the acceptance of new laws by reasonably minded opponents of such laws after they have been passed, and I am bound to ask myself this question. Assuming that at the last election the Conservative party had been returned by a majority of seats but with a minority of votes and had proceeded by means of that majority of votes in this House to pass a general tariff, would it be expected that it would have been accepted as a permanent solution of that question? I will not put it any higher than that. Would it be accepted as a permanent solution? Can we expect a majority of people to remain quiet and peaceable when laws of which they disapprove are being made by a minority? I do not think we can.

I put this point very respectfully to the noble lady, the Member for Kinross and Western (Duchess of Atholl), in whose name an Amendment appears on the Paper. I will not emphasise again the point which has already been made, that in Scotland there is a clear Socialist majority of Members who, however, are in a minority of practically 400,000 votes, but if Scotland were as free as Ireland that majority of Members would be able to do as they liked. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) is, I believe, also an opponent of this Bill. Well, it suits his book. I can imagine him, in his mind's eye, thinking himself a reincarnation of Robespierre and gazing with fanatical exultation on the sight of the noble lady being taken to some modem Scottish equivalent of the guillotine. It might possibly add to her serenity at that moment if the Noble Lady knew that a majority of her countrymen and countrywomen desired her demise; if they did not, I think the national chivalry of the Scottish people would prevent the dread deed. That might make for trouble, but it certainly would not make for good government. We must not forget another thing, and that is that at the present time we have no effective Second Chamber. The reform of the House of Lords, which many years ago brooked no delay, is still indefinitely delayed, and and therefore we do suffer—and this is the main point of my argument in favour of the Bill—from this great danger of minority rule. Proportional Representation means that we must make individually as parties this sacrifice—we must be prepared to sacrifice the hope of ruling through a minority vote in order to avoid being ruled by a minority vote.

The last point that I want to deal with in this pamphlet of objections to the Bill is where it says that the Bill will give the second and third votes the same value as the first, which is electorally unfair and scientifically unsound. I absolutely join issue with that, because the whole basis of our support of this Bill is that it is mathematically accurate, absolutely fair, and scientifically sound. Proportional Representation assures that every vote will have its value, and that very few will be wasted. Voters will be able to consider the individual candidates on their merits, without thinking about whether they are going to put the other fellow in I know of one case of a whole family, containing, I think, three or four voters—they were not in my own constituency, but they were personal friends of mine—who up to the last moment delayed deciding whether they should vote for the Conservative candidate because they thought the Liberal had the best chance of keeping the Socialist out. Under Proportional Representation they would have had no difficulty of that sort. They would have voted first for the Conservative, then for the Liberal. In regard to this question as to whether Proportional Representation is scientifically sound, I want to ask whether the present system is scientifically sound and electorally fair.

I see that the hon. and gallant Member for the Hulme Division of Manchester (Lieut.-Colonel Nall) has his name down as an opponent of this Bill. He comes from the great city of Manchester, the last, the only representative of the Conservative party in that city. He comes here and in way proclaims, as Elijah did," I, even I only, am left." [An HON. MEMBER: "And they seek my life, to take it away."] Let us look at the facts. In Manchester, there are 10 Members—five Liberals, four Socialists, and Elijah. The Liberals were 71,000, the Socialists were 79,000, but the men who had not bowed the knee to Baal numbered 104,000. It is a great burden for the hon. and gallant Member for Hulme to carry to represent 104,000. He does it worthily, but it is too much to ask him to take on the task of four men, and I would ask him, if he is going to speak—I am afraid I do not see him in the House at the moment—how he justifies the present position in Manchester as scientifically fair and justifiable in any way.

Having dealt with the objections £o the Bill, I want very shortly to state what I think are the main arguments in favour of the Bill, and I will first take the question of the interest of Members themselves. They will be freed from the pressure of small and minor interests. Does not every one of us who has fought a contested election know how enthusiastic friends rush into the Committee room, tell you with tears in their eyes that the undertakers' vote has gone wrong, or that the Latter Day Saints are in revolt, or that the Society for the Provision of Bathing Drawers among Papuans has decided to vote against you? As a result of this kind of minor pressure, do we not all of us recall promises made in haste and repented of in the Division Lobby? Under Proportional Representation these minor interests will assume their proper and mathematical proportion. Then, again, there comes the question of the retention in political life, and the not breaking of the political careers, of leaders and men universally admitted to be of value to their party and the State. I want to take three instances. If we had had Proportional Representation at the last election, Mr. Churchill would not have been defeated in Leicester. [An HON. MEMBER: "That has done it!"] If we had had Proportional Representation in Essex, Mr. Pretyman, who was admittedly one of the wisest advisers that agriculture has ever had in this House, would not have been defeated. If we had had Proportional Representation in Newcastle, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would not have had to seek pastures new.

I maintain that it would also take much of the bitterness out of Parliamentary Elections, that it would take a good deal of the sting out of that obnoxious reptile, the last minute election lie, that it would secure as far as possible majority rule, that it would make for the stability of the State, that it would minimise the power of the wobbler, and moderate the swing of the pendulum. Further, I want to say this—and I want to say it in a whisper to my own friends on this side of the House —that it would keep off for many years the danger of a Socialist Government, and to my hon. Friends opposite who may have heard that whisper, I would say this, that when they have converted a majority of the people to support them, then Proportional Representation will assure and will not prevent them entering into their kingdom, and enable them to rule, but they would then rule with the knowledge that they had a majority of the people behind them, and not a minority. If Proportional Representation can do one half of what I have tried to indicate, this House should undoubtedly support it

I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words" upon this day six months."

While I was listening, as I did with close attention, to the vigorous speech in which the hon. Member for Thornbury (Mr. Rendall) moved the Second Reading of this Bill, I was inclined to be tempted to think we had reversed our roles, and that he was moving an Amendment to a Bill providing for the introduction of the present electoral system, because it seemed to me that his remarks were confined almost entirely to a criticism of that system, and that he had very little to say about the system which he proposed to establish in its stead. My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. S. Roberts) put the case rather more comprehensively to the House when he admitted that it was not sufficient to prove that there were drawbacks in the present electoral system, but that anyone who sought to alter that system must show that the system which it was proposed to set up in its stead would not be open to grave defects, and indeed that it might not produce greater evils than those which can be pointed out in the present system. I wish to say at once that, as a new Member, I should not be venturing to move an Amendment on this subject—a subject which I recognise is one of very great importance to this country, and one which I know has often previously been debated in this House— were it not for the fact that I have some actual experience of this system of Proportional Representation in practice. I hope to be able to show that it is not able to clear itself of the charges of which my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Roberts) admitted it would have to clear itself if it were to receive the sanction of this House.

The first point I wish to make in regard to the Bill is that this system of Proportional Representation is only one of two systems which the Bill proposes, to set up. Clause 1 enacts that every elector is to have a single transferable vote, but I do not think it is very clearly realised that it is proposed to set up two systems of voting which are not only quite distinct from each other, but which are even mutually contradictory The system of Proportional Representation is the system which, as hon. Members know, is to be proposed for the greater number of constituencies in the country. These constituencies are to be lumped together to return three or more Members, but there is an admission in the Bill—and I think it is a very valuable admission from the point of view of those who think as I do—that there are certain constituencies which it is possible that the Commissioners proposed to be set up may consider unsuitable for this system of Proportional Representation. Therefore these constituencies, which would be constituencies, it is indicated, in which the population is sparsely scattered, are not to have Proportional Representation, but the system known as the Alternative Vote. The hon. Member for Thornbury (Mr. Rendall) did not say much about Proportional Representation, and I do not think he said anything about the Alternative Vote. I may perhaps, therefore, be allowed to remind the House of the system by which Proportional Representation works out. The quota of votes necessary to enable a candidate to secure election is fixed by dividing the total number of valid votes cast by the total number of vacancies which have to be filled, plus one, and by adding the number one to the result so secured. When a count is taken, any candidate who has received the quota or more is declared elected, and his surplus votes, if any, are transferred to the other candidates who have been given second preferences on his papers. They are transferred in the proportion that the surplus of the elected candidate bears to the total number of votes cast for him. Then if this transference of the surplus votes of elected candidates has not filled all the vacancies, the second preferences recorded on the voting papers of members at the bottom of the poll are transferred in their entirety. Therefore under this system—as I am quite sure my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury will admit— it is claimed that every second preference gets a good chance of being used. I do not think that can be denied; that the gist of this system of Proportional Representation is to secure minority representation by ensuring that, even if the first vote of the voter is not used, that every elector gets a chance by his second vote of helping to secure the return of a candidate.

I think it is not difficult to show that the principle at the root of the system known as the Alternative Vote is diametrically, opposed to the principle which I have endeavoured to describe, because under the Alternative Vote the candidate at the bottom of the poll is at once put out. He may have had many second preferences recorded for him, and may therefore have secured a total larger vote than the first or the second candidates, but as only the first votes are allowed to count in his case he is automatically declared out; therefore I say that these systems of the Alternative Vote and Proportional Representation are diametrically opposed to each other. By no one has this been more clearly pointed out than by a gentleman who I believe is a well-known official of the Proportional Representation Society. He has recently published a very interesting little book on the question of Proportional Representation. In the course of it, in criticising the system of the Alternative Vote, he says—

When I look at these very interesting examples I am bound to confess that, having regard to what we have seen in the papers in the last few days, as to the intentions of the Liberal party, I cannot help wondering whether this little volume has not had a fair circulation amongst my hon. Friends opposite. Then the writer of this book goes on to say:

When we remember that the chief virtue that is claimed for Proportional Representation is the fact that it provides representation for minorities I cannot help wondering what Liberal members think about the minorities in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, which presumably is the part of the country where the Alternative Vote would apply. The hon. Member for Thornbury in Introducing this Bill does not seem to have the same concern for the minorities in that part of the country that he has for minorities elsewhere. When I realise that this Bill contains these two very distinctly contradictory proposals I cannot help thinking that the writer of the book which I have just quoted must regard the provisions relating to the Alternative Vote in this Bill very much as the bird which makes a nest for itself, must regard the cuckoo's egg that it sometimes finds in it.

I now come to the question of Proportional Representation, the system to be most generally introduced under this Bill. In Scotland, as hon. Members know, we have had this system in operation now some five years in the elections for education authorities. We have had two elections under this system. One can admit at once that this system is not quite so open to the objection in the case of local bodies as I hold it to be in the case of Parliamentary elections, and for reasons which I will give; but I am firmly of opinion that we have seen enough in these elections to realise that the objections which have been commonly made against Proportional Representation in Parliamentary elections are thoroughly well founded, and I hope to be able to show the truth of this statement. The first objection made to the system of Proportional Representation is the question of the area. That is a matter which has not been so seriously felt in regard to local elections, because in such contests the electoral areas are very much smaller than they are for Parliamentary elections, but even for these smaller areas I think we have seen enough to realise the reason for the fear that the Member under Proportional Representation would lose personal touch with his constituency. I do not wish to, enlarge upon that, but I desire to say that I do feel, in spite of all the humour with which my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford approached this subject, that the tie between a Member and his or her constituency is a very real one, and I should strongly deprecate any system that made it possible for that tie in any way to be weakened.

There is another point, and that is the greatly increased fatigue that would be entailed on those who had to contest large constituencies. That is a consideration which makes a strong appeal to a woman Member. There are in this House women who represent country constituencies, and I am sure they will agree, with me when I say that the fatigue of contesting a country constituency, even under present conditions, is no light matter, and personally I think that the fatigue of fighting one of those large constituencies would be such as to make it very difficult for women to undertake the strain of standing for election to this House. I should be very sorry to impute sinister motives to anyone from whom I differ, and more particularly from one for whom I have so sincere a regard as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), but I cannot help wondering whether his advocacy of Proportional Representation may not be due to a desire that, through its operation, he may be relieved of the presence of women in this House, to which he said the other day he had so strong an objection. Whether that is so or not I do feel that these enlarged electoral areas would be a very real difficulty in the way of the candidature of women for Parliament. The hon. Member for Hereford spoke of the bogey of expense. I have to admit at once that the Bill makes provision against that, because it provides that candidates are not to spend more on elections than is permitted at the present time. That is quite satisfactory from the candidate's point of view, but what about the electorate? It merely means a less informed electorate, because in out-of-the-way places the electors will not be able to have the meetings they desire. The candidate will have to put in an appearance at the most important places in the division, and the result will be that outlying places will be neglected. We all know that that is bound to lead to loss of interest on the part of the electors.

Another difficulty that I see in this system—and it is one which has already been felt in Scotland—is that it tends to lessen the representation of the agricultural industry, and that is very keenly felt in many rural areas in Scotland at the present time. The system of Proportional Representation which has joined together small boroughs with rural areas has produced the result that the borough can always get its candidates elected, whereas you want a very strong candidate indeed to be successful in a small rural district, even for election on the Education Authority. That has been seen at both Elections, and I think it is a point which ought to be very seriously considered. I think we all recognise the great importance of the agricultural industry to the country, and I do not think any section of the House would like to see it made more difficult for that interest to be adequately represented.

Now I come to another and a very important objection, and it is one which I do not think was dealt with by my hon. Friend, that is, the fact of the second preference. This plays so large a part in the election of Members under Proportional Representation that it necessarily increases the power of the organisation at the expense of the individual candidate. This has not yet been very much noticed in our education elections. It has, however, been seen to a certain extent, and I will quote one or two instances. The issues as a rule are not very clear cut in education elections, at least not in the rural areas—I cannot speak for the big towns—and because the election of a large number of candidates is required, there are not usually many surplus candidates, and therefore not much organisation is necessary. Under these circumstances, it has usually been possible for individuals to get elected on their merits in the rural areas.

But even in the rural districts of Scotland, I have seen enough of this system to realise the power that it attaches to organised effort. I know several cases in which candidates who, to judge from their first vote, should have secured a vacancy, have failed for lack of second votes—for the simple reason that they have had no organisation behind them, or that because they held their meetings alone they were not recognised as standing on the same platform as other candidates. I know that in this way the services of some most experienced persons have been lost to the education authorities.

I feel very strongly that while, of course, we must have broad outlines of policy put forward by parties as a whole, and while I recognise the necessity for party machinery in order to put those policies before the country, the individuality and the personal record of the candidate does play a vital part in the election of Members to Parliament, and rightly so. In a single Member contest individuality and the personal record of the candidate play a large part. We all contest elections, so to speak, under the searchlight. I know it is not always a very pleasant thing, and sometimes it may be abused, but I do think it constitutes a safeguard for the integrity of public life; and anything that lessens the responsibility of an individual candidate, or tends to obscure his personal record and individuality, is something which may be very detrimental to the public welfare. And where you have more than one candidate standing for the same party, it is inevitable that the second votes will be largely cast upon party lines, without due consideration for the personality or individuality of the candidates for whom the votes axe cast.

The power attached to organisation is also increased in another way. If you have only one candidate representing a party or a group, you will inevitably have bargaining between those parties or groups in regard to the second preference. We have already had an indication of that in Scotland, and we have had indications that sometimes when it is attempted to make bargains of that kind they are not adhered to equally by both sides. I am bound to say that I do not think that would make for that greater sweetness in elections for which the hon. Member for Hereford hopes from this system. It seems to me inevitable that because the object of this system, as has been emphasised, is minority representation, the introduction of it would make for groups. You would have groups representing this interest or that interest, or this point of view or that point of view, coming forward and attempting to run candidates of their own. It seems to me that nothing could be worse for public life than to encourage the formation of sectional groups of this kind and the running of candidates by such groups.

I am sure that I speak for all my women colleagues in the House when I say that there is nothing of which we are more proud than of the fact that we come here sent not only by the votes of women but by the votes of men, and I hope that to some of my men colleagues, at least, it is a satisfaction to know that women electors have helped to send them to this House. It seems to me essential to the public interest that every Member coming here should endeavour as far as possible to represent all interests in his or her constituency all sections, both sexes, and all creeds. By no one has this prejudicial effect of the formation of groups under proportional representation been more clearly exposed and more vigorously denounced than by the Prime Minister in an utterance of his which I will not quote verbatim as it was cited last year in the debate on this subject. I hope that that means that the Government are prepared to leave this very important question to the decision of the House by a free vote.

There is another point which I wish to make and which I do not think has been brought out in the previous debates on this subject which I have studied. It arises out of what I have already mentioned, that if vacancies are not filled by the transference of votes from candidates already elected, they can be filled by votes transferred from candidates at the bottom of the poll. Everyone can see that that puts a premium on the Selection of at least a proportion of weak candidates by party organisers. Under this system, as it seems to me, the first Concern of a party organiser in arranging his list of candidates, naturally enough, would be to secure a strong candidate who would stand a very good chance of being at the top of the poll, but, having done that, he would then try to find a weak one who would have a very good chance of being at the bottom of the poll; and, when he had buttressed his party in by candidates selected under that system, he might indulge in the luxury of putting forward a candidate of average chances.

I can produce instances to vouch for what I am saying. I am not speaking of a hypothetical case. If I may say so, I think the cases produced by the hon. Member for Hereford were hypothetical cases, whereas everything that I am saying is based on something which has actually occurred. Wherever you have a considerable surplus of candidates for seats, the votes transferred from those at the bottom of the poll are almost bound to pay a considerable part in the election. There is an instance of one burgh in Scotland where there were 15 candidates for 9 places. Only three were elected on first votes, and only two more were elected without help from candidates at the bottom of the poll. That meant that the counts went on until the votes of all the candidates at the bottom had been transferred, and four out of the nine elected candidates got in largely by help from candidates who had received the least number of votes. I can give another instance from a division where there were 10 candidates for five seats and where three of the candidates who were finally elected got help by the transference of votes from those at the bottom of the poll. There is an even more striking instance from a division of a Scottish burgh where there were 15 candidates for seven places, and where only one candidate was elected on the first vote. No one but that first candidate got in independent of help from the bottom of the poll. I do not wish to say anything against individuals, but it is obvious that the men who secure the least votes are not the strongest candidates. I would ask hon. Members opposite to contrast a system which gives so much importance to second votes transferred from the bottom of the poll with the present one by which a safeguard has been provided against weak candidates coming forward in the penalty of £150 which has to be paid if a candidate does not secure one-eighth of the votes. This system therefore puts a premium on the selection of a certain proportion of weak candidates.

I fear that I have detained the House long enough, and I only wish, in conclusion, just to repeat that the Bill introduces not one system, but two systems, mutually destructive and contradictory; that one knocks down what the other system proposes to set up; and that it would unquestionably promote sectionalism and groups and strengthen the Party machine at the expense of the individual. I do not think it is possible to over-emphasise the importance of the individual in public life. Surely, if there be one thing more than another which we must seek to safeguard and preserve, it is that candidates should stand on their own feet and come here men and women of the best possible personal record. I submit that this system takes away that safeguard and that therefore it strikes at the root of something which is very precious and vital to the welfare of this country. I have not attempted to deal with the question of stability, but I think I have said enough to show that there are very grave reasons to doubt whether stability can be assured under this system, and that it is not possible even to be sure that the minority will not have a majority under the Alternative Vote system. For all these reasons, I beg the House to refuse a Second Reading to this Bill.

I beg to second the Amendment, which has been so ably moved by the Noble Lady. When I became associated with other Members in organising opposition to this Bill, I was not aware that it would assume the importance in the proceedings of Parliament that it has assumed owing to certain happenings during the last few days. I understand that a meeting was held by my hon. Friends below the Gangway, at which, for the first time in the history of the Liberal party, they placed proportional representation in the front rank of their official programme. I confess that it has been a little difficult in the past to know what was the official programme of the Liberal party. I can remember the days of the Parliament of 1906, when there was a considerable activity for electoral reform, but I do not remember that the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) or the other Liberal leaders were then falling over themselves to introduce as a Government with a sweeping Parliamentary majority, the scheme of electoral reform in regard to which they have become so extraordinarily enthusiastic since the last General Election. I am afraid the result of that election has had some influence on the views of the Liberal party on this question. At any rate it is exceedingly foolish for my hon. Friends to expect that they can come to the Labour Members and say to them, "Either you swallow this Bill, or we are going to the country to make trouble for you."

Who said that?

I think that one of the hon. Members who put that question should be careful how he deals with his own Press. We have had that view pretty straightly indicated by hon. Members. Of course they have a perfect right to go to the constituencies and dig themselves in. They can come to my constituency, as they have done, and make an unprovoked attack on the Labour party. By all means let them do it. Hon. Members should gee to their constituencies, and they should go to other people's constituencies in order to do the best they can for their own party. The Labour party makes no complaint against hon. Members for doing the best they can for their respective political parties. Goodness knows they need to do so. The Labour party's attitude on this question is not settled. The matter was discussed at various conferences before the War, and I have a recollection of some exciting Debates on the subject between the present Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the result of which was that the Prime Minister converted me, holus bolus, against proportional representation. The party policy has not been very clear. There have been various decisions—some in favour of proportional representation and in other cases the very convenient expedient of the "Previous Question" has been resorted to. In recent years certainly no definite decision had been made. The London Labour Party has repeatedly, by overwhelming majorities, condemned proportional representation. I think the same is true of the Labour movement in Scotland. It is true of that movement in Durham and other English counties. We get varying versions of the effects of proportional representation on the fortunes of political parties. I saw a circular issued to Conservative Members of Parliament proving that proportional representations will lead to stability and secure the triumph of moderate opinion. If that be so there could be nothing more desired by those hon. Gentlemen. The Members of the Labour party, after every General Election, get circulars from the same source to prove that if only proportional representation had been in force they would have beaten the Conservatives in a much more decisive way. I think the case from a party point of view is strongest for proportional representation in the interests of Liberalism, and that probably accounts for the decision come to during the recent crisis. But let us examine it so far as it applies to the constituencies. The general principle of this Bill is to amalgamate existing constituencies into one constituency with from three to seven Members. Existing constituencies which return seven Members would become one constituency. That would involve really enormous constituencies so far as the areas and electorates are concerned. Take the county of Hertfordshire. It would be impossible for the candidates in that election effectively to contest it and to keep in touch with the constituency. Imagine a constituency with five Members and an elector in that constituency wanting to get a pension case dealt with! To whom is he to write?

Write to the lot.

And then the Members would get duplicate copies of the letters. Each one would, I presume, in discharge of his duty, write to the Minister of Pensions, who, of all people, would have cause to curse proportional representation. The delays which are now complained of in getting replies would certainly be aggravated, and that in itself shows the difficulty of getting a real personal responsibility for a decision in these matters. If in the case of counties it is impossible to have effective organisation for an electoral contest it is equally so in the case of boroughs. Take the London boroughs, for example. Take the borough of Wandsworth. That borough is so large for municipal purposes that the main difficulty of the Labour party is to get a civic conscience even for municipal purposes. Imagine that borough consisting of Clapham, Streatham, Putney and Southfields, Balham and Tooting, and Central Wandsworth running into one Parliamentary Division. It would be an impossible area to work both in point of size and from the point of view of getting some reasonable contact with the electorate. I submit that under this system electoral contests would become a farce and representation, too, would be a farce. Let us consider the size of the electorates. Under this Bill they would range from 100,000 to 230,000 electors, and in a few years, as we shall enfranchise undoubtedly all young women over twenty-one—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why not this Session?"] There are hon. Members on the Standing Committee A who can explain what is the matter with this Session. Personally I have been very busy on the London Traffic Bill and have been unable to attend Standing Committee A. But what I want to point out is, that under this Bill we might get a constituency with 350,000 voters, and I submit it would be making representation ridiculous and political campaigning an impossible proposition. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] If I have to explain to hon. Members why political campaigning would become impossible when you have an electorate of 350,000 to deal with, I am very sorry, but such explanation does not appear to me to be necessary at all. The result would be that the power of the candidate and of the election agent to cultivate the individual elector, which is exceedingly important, would be materially diminished. The only way to fight a huge constituency, when you cannot touch the individual elector, is inevitably by stunt methods of electoral campaigning. Hon. members will remember what happened in one of the divisions of Hertfordshire, when a certain individual won the seat. I believe airships were taken down and circuses of all kinds. Conduct of that kind would tend to become inevitable under this system. I say that that by-election was not a credit to British politics, but was a disgrace to our electoral institutions. The stunt press would tend to increase. Elections would be determined more and more by the picture papers and other institutions of that kind, and you would be driven to large scale fighting by methods of publicity and stunts of various kinds, in order to make the electorate keep talking about the candidates you wanted them to talk about. The whole structure of electoral party machinery, remember, would have to be changed, but as the new machine adapted itself to the change, it would be inevitable that the machine and the ticket would count far more than the character of the individual candidate. Electors would have to vote for the list, as in France at the present time, and the election agents—many of them are very good friends of mine—would have a great problem in settling for whom they were to vote. I can imagine a situation which would beat St. George's, Hanover Square, into a cocked hat.

1.0 P.M.

Proportional Representation would secure the election to Parliament not so much of candidates representing general opinion and majority opinion, as of candidates of certain groups representing special minority opinion, and although you may get, in theory, a system whereby every recorded vote is turned to effective use in a constituency, in Parliament, instead of having a majority representing a general tendency in public opinion, you would have an aggregation of minorities, and an impossible Parliamentary situation, which would lead to dishonesty in Parliamentary tactics. It is all very well to say the present system has produced this Parliamentary situation This Parliamentary situation is going along nicely, and I have no doubt the coming by-elections will improve it. But you have got a tendency in this House to divide into two. My hon. Friends below the gangway sometimes find some difficulty in knowing which Lobby to go into, and do not go into either. But, as a rule, hon. Members can find a Lobby to go into, as they will this afternoon. Take a constituency of five or seven members in North Wales. I can conceive the temperance vote easily getting a temperance man in. It is one of the dangers of the Liberal party that the temperance vote may detach itself from Liberals, all of whom are by no means necessarily teetotallers, and secure special and independent representation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] That would be a legitimate ambition. Similarly, the brewers in North Wales, and the publicans and sinners, might also secure an independent candidate, and there might be two Liberals and a Conservative making up the representation. When those members come to this House, how is the temperance member going to vote upon a Miners' Minimum Wage Bill? How is the brewers' member going to vote upon the reduction of the tea duty? Will it not be the tendency for these special groups representing minority opinion upon specialised questions to form immoral bargains in the House of Commons, each of them voting for things in which he does not believe, in order to get others to vote for things in which they do not believe? The whole tendency of Proportional Representation is the elevation of the minority and the subjection of the majority to the special opinion of cranks and freaks of various kinds. The freak would get in. I am reminded by an hon. Member that he gets in now, but, after all, most of our freaks keep fairly quiet. Under this system they might really become noisy and a serious Parliamentary problem. The sort of blustering, bamboozling type of candidate—[" Bottomley "] No, I am not making any reflection on any predecessor of mine in the representation of my constituency; at any rate, he is in a place from which he cannot answer, and it would not be right for any Member to pass any reflection—but the bamboozling type of candidate we know who sometimes gets in, would tend to get in, and Proportional Representation, instead of promoting solid opinion and solid government, would promote irresponsible government, and elevate the minority in that way. A Government would, therefore, be not the Government of responsible parties and responsible tendencies in public opinion, but an aggregation of minorities, and curiosities, and it would be an exceedingly undesirable system of government altogether.

I have seen Proportional Representation in operation in the election of committees within the Labour movement, and this is how it is done, if you know how to do it. As a matter of fact, usually, although the Labour movement is very democratic, and insists upon religiously appointing its own scrutineers to see that no jobbery is done, it has to bring in an outside expert to act as foreman. I have seen 11 or 12 votes collected out of, perhaps, a total of 140 for a definite candidate by an active, scheming minority. They get in 11 or 12 first preferences, for nobody knows whom. Nobody ever heard of him before, or wants to hear of him again, but they get 11 or 12 votes by organising from the bottom, and the man goes on representing no respon- sible section of opinion within the union itself. That is what happens in a committee. I do not know, but my impression is that the National Liberal Federation have not yet applied the principle of Proportional Representation. Therefore, I am unable to make odious comparisons, but, I hope, after their conversion on Wednesday, they will immediately apply this glorious principle to their own organisations, and even to the selection of their own Parliamentary candidates. It reduces government to a mathematical formula. Anyone who has been through a count of votes in a Proportional Representation Election cannot but be confused with the method of counting, and the bringing in of the experts is an indication of it. Let hon. Members of all parties imagine the scrutineers, whom they have such trouble in selecting before the General Election—when all the local leaders of the party want to be scrutineers and there are not enough tickets for them —imagine those scrutineers sitting down and trying to check and see that justice is done to their candidates. Under this system they would have to sit down and smoke and wait till it is finished, in the hope that the returning officer has done it right.

I believe that Government ought to be strong, so strong that it can make concessions to minorities and meet their points of view. It is all very well to say that the present system is a dictatorship and a tyranny. It is not. I have had the pleasure of bringing pressure to bear upon Governments. I have had the pleasure, in company with other Labour Mayors, of chasing the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) into the Highlands of Scotland, in order to press his Government to do something for the unemployed. Let me say this, that public opinion, if it is intelligent, if it is energetic, can always bring pressure to bear upon Governments and can get things done. The Conservative party time after time have been compelled to do things that they did not want to do, because of the pressure of public opinion outside, and my own party may be compelled to do the same, as, also, have been Governments of the Liberal party. Public opinion finds way of making itself felt in due course. Governments, however, ought to be so strong that they can govern reasonably. I would prefer, on the whole, a Government that is bad but is fairly strong and logical, to a Government like the Coalition Government of recent years, which was neither good, bad nor indifferent, and was always wobbling from one policy to another. That is the worst possible system of government, and Proportional Representation is essentially the electoral philosophy of coalition.

It is contrary to the best British traditions. It means the development of many Parliamentary groups, as is the case in France and in Germany. It means that the groups have to come together often for mutually antagonistic purposes, and any theory of government or of Parliamentary work, based upon the coming together of opinions that are really antagonistic, is wrong, is contrary to democracy, and is contrary to the interests of our country. I have already dealt with the question of the general policy of men elected exclusively, for example, on temperance matters, or exclusively in defence of beer and of Britain's greatness in that direction. Proportional Representation is a philosophy which is not unnatural to small new parties struggling to get a footing on the electoral field, and not having much staying power or pluck to fight. It is also perfectly natural to decaying political parties, who are doomed to extinction in the course of time, and who can only retain their position by elevating the power of the minority and subjecting the power of the majority. It is perfectly natural to them, but it is not natural to strong men and women who want their country to be governed wisely and firmly, and I hope, therefore, that the House will not accept that type of government.

On the whole, the present system does secure representative government. You have in this House two Lobbies; in this Bill it is proposed that there shall be goodness knows how many preferences. There may easily be 30 candidates or even more in one constituency, and the elector is to be asked to vote one, two, three, four, right down, as to who is to get in. Personally, I have always one preference, and one only, and that is for the Labour party. Anyone else does not stand an earthly chance so far as I am concerned, and I believe that that is also the general opinion on the benches opposite so far as their own party is concerned. After all, that is a quite honest, frank and definite statement of view. This present difficult Parliamentary situation—it is not nearly so difficult as we might have anticipated—is not going to last. We are going to evolve into the two-party system again. As it is, there are, as I have said, two Lobbies in this House, in addition to the Lobby outside where you do not vote, and the tendency is for parties to divide into two. In the County of London, in the previous Parliament, we had nine Labour Members, and it was very interesting to note that the two-party system immediately came into operation in those constituencies at the last General Election. In five constituencies the Tories1 had a straight fight with us, and in four the Liberals had a straight fight with us. That may be a wonderful piece of mathematical accuracy or accident. It may have been part of the philosophy of Proportional Representation; but that is the tendency. It is true in Scotland, and it is true in other divisions. You will find that the parties will tend to come together. Many of the Liberals will come to us, and it will be the wisest thing for them to do; or, in the constituencies, the Conservatives will give the Liberals a free run against the Labour candidates, or the Liberals will give the Conservatives a free run against the Labour candidates. That was the Home Secretary's experience at Newcastle at the General Election. I do not complain; parties must make their own arrangements for their own advantage; but these things are happening, and tend to bring us back to the two-party system. Personally, I am fairly well satisfied with the existing electoral system. You may produce all your statistics about anomalous results. You could not produce statistics about the anomalous results of Proportional Representation, because no one would understand them. As a whole the present system works' reasonably well. It does secure us fairly representative government. In any case, it is not up to those who oppose this Bill to prove that the present system is perfect; it is up to those who support this Bill to show that the criticisms which we have advanced have not been sound and valid.

I hope the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down will allow me to congratulate him upon his animated and instructive speech, which, I am sure, was listened to in every quarter of the House, not, indeed, with complete agreement, but with gratification, as throwing a good deal of new light upon some of the intricate problems connected with this matter. The hon. Gentleman has spoken of recent conversions. I start with the confession that it was only at a late stage —though not last Wednesday; it was some time ago—in my political life that I became a convert to Proportional Representation. I started with every possible prepossession and prejudice against it. I have repeated, in my own unregenerate days, the Philistine formula of Sir William Harcourt, that the only right of a minority is to turn itself into a majority. If I have changed my view, it is not through the operation of abstract reasoning, and certainly not, as the hon. Member would seem to think, owing to belated devotion to some form of political mathematics. Nothing of the kind. It was with me, as with many other people, not only in all parties here, but in all the great democracies of the world, the result of observation and experience.

Perhaps the House will bear with me for a very few moments if I just develop briefly the reasons which have led me to that conclusion. The development of a representative system is the great contribution, as we all know, which modern thought and practice have made to the problem that baffled the ancient world— the problem of combining freedom with strong and effective government. In particular, it is by representation alone that democracy has been made a workable institution. For a long time here, as elsewhere, representation was partial and lopsided. Large sections of people were completely excluded. The voter was not adequately protected against corruption and coercion. The areas of representation were capricious and ill-adjusted. These deficiencies have, to a large extent, been set right. Men and women of all classes everywhere in this country enjoy now the power of free voting. Anomalies in the relative size of constituencies, though they have not completely ceased to exist, are tending to disappear.

So far, I am in agreement with the hon. Member who spoke last. That is all to the good. But the fact remains— this is what I want, if I can, to impress upon the House—that, under existing electoral conditions, there is no safeguard whatsoever that the House of Commons should be an accurate reflection of national opinion. Your present system entirely fails to secure that which is the essence of true representation, not a mathematical, but a substantial correspondence between parliamentary and electoral strength. I am not to-day arguing the matter on party lines. The hon. Member admitted that the party to which I belong is for the time being the greatest sufferer, but I am not arguing it on those lines at all. I will give two illustrations to show that that is the case—two very remarkable elections in which the unexpected overturn of a parliamentary strength was almost unexampled—the elections of 1906 and 1918. The election of 1906, as everyone knows, resulted in the return of an enormous Liberal majority—I think the largest since the time of the Reform Bill. It was almost embarrassingly unwieldy, an embarrassment which right hon. Gentlemen opposite are not likely to have to undergo in the existing House of Commons. We do not know what may be in the womb of the future. It was an embarrassingly unwieldly majority as I know well, for I had something to do with the daily manipulation of it, and it was far in excess of the preponderance of Liberal voting strength at the polls. In Scotland—I was a Scottish Member then, as I am now—in 1906 the votes polled for Liberals were 368,000 and for the Conservatives 235,000. We then lived under the happy simplicity of the two party system. That included the whole of the polled votes. Yet the Liberals returned 60 Members and the Conservatives only 12. Can anyone justify that? Each Conservative on the average represented 19,000 voters and each Liberal Member represented 6,000. That is a case in which the Liberal party got an unfair advantage from the loading of the dice.

Which you did not complain of.

We made the best of it.

So will we.

Certainly. That may be the intention, but I do not know what the results may be. Take, as a parallel instance, an election which is fresh in all our memories, the famous election of December, 1918, which resulted in the return of a vast Coalition majority. There were in that House of Commons 428 Coalition Members, 47 Labour Members and 25 or 26 Liberal Members, of whom I was not one, because I fell at the poll, but I rejoined it in the course of the year.

You will fall next time.

There is not very much relevance in that interruption. In proportion to the number of votes polled the 428 Coalition Members ought to have been 292, the Labour Members, instead of being—I am not sure that I have the figures exactly, but I think something like 47, ought to have been 120, and the anti-Coalition Liberals instead of being 25, 26, 27, or whatever the number was, ought to have been 67. That is a parody and a caricature of representation, impossible to justify on any principle of equity or by any rule of common sense. It is quite possible, under conditions like these, for an electoral minority to secure a majority of seats. That is the case in Scotland at present. Examine the Scottish representation in this House at this moment, and you will see that that is the case to-day. It is the negation of representation, because it vitiates the real purpose for which representation exists.

New let me enumerate what seem to me—I am not arguing this as an abstract, but as a practical question—to be the practical evils which result. In the first place, your present system favours the creation of a majority whose parliamentary power is far in excess of their representative authority. What is the result of that? The House of Commons tends to put itself at the disposal, and indeed at the mercy, of the Executive of the day. A second evil is this. Our present system creates outside in the country the same feeling of distrust as was felt of old for autocracies and oligarchies. The first security for the working of democracy—that the will of the majority of the people for the time being shall prevail—disappears. The inevitable result will be, if that goes on, that the movement for direct or extra-parliamentary action will gather force and strength.

The third and last of these evils to which I would ask the serious attention of the House is, that in large and important areas of the country under your present system a local political minority has no representation at all. It is not a question of faddists. I have no fear of their securing, under Proportional Representation or any other system, more than an absolutely contemptuous representation in this House. I see the late First Lord of the Admiralty present. I know he is a supporter of Proportional Representation. I take the case of the great city of which he is one of the representatives—Birmingham. A Liberal or a Labour man in Birmingham has no chance of being elected. [HON. MEMBER: "Question!"] I will not say "no chance," because that is perhaps too strong an expression, but, at any rate, he is at a very serious disadvantage. Liberals and Labour people have been fighting in Birmingham, ever since I can remember, an uphill and desperate fight. They are large in number, keen in conviction, active in propaganda, but it is all of no avail. That, is heartbreaking work. It tends—though, happily, it has not gone to that extent or had that result so far—to political lethargy and political paralysis, and to a slackening down of that healthy clash of continuous opposition, with all the possible vicissitudes of failure and success, of the real political battlefield. It develops really into a sham fight. That is a bad thing from what I may call the moral point of view, and it is a most unjust thing that this minority, large as it is, gets no representation of any sort or kind. How can that be justified? I have never heard any attempt at justification. This argument seems to be even more applicable to our present condition of things than in the old days when the two-party system flourished with unabated rigour.

We want electoral machinery that will, at all times, make sure, as nearly as the conditions of life will allow, of two things —and I hope I shall have universal assent in this proposition—first, that the actual majority of the electorate, as its will has been expressed at the poll, shall govern—no one wants to interfere with that true democratic principle—and, secondly, that no substantial minority shall be left without representation in Parliament. Is there anyone who disputes either of these propositions? Is there anyone who disputes that these results are not attained now, or only attained haphazardly, occasionally, and precariously by our present electorate machine?

Proportional Representation has been shown by the experience of other countries not to be in any degree unworkable in practice. It should be applied, if it is to be applied, and I hope it will be applied here, with elasticity and not with any kind of iron uniformity. It is an experiment, I agree, but it is an experiment which we are bound to make, because it supplies the only direct means of escape from the breakdown and even the bankruptcy of our electoral system.

Before I say a few words upon the Bill, may I, in respect to the speech just delivered by the right hon. Leader of the Liberal party, make an observation which I am sure will be endorsed by most Members of this House, and certainly by hon. Members on this side? I express our great regret that while the right hon. Gentleman was addressing the House—I know he is quite able to take care of himself—he was interrupted. We deeply resent interruptions of so great and honoured a Member of this House from any quarter, especially interruptions which are intended to be gibes or intended to upset the Leader of a great party while he is addressing this assembly.

I want to join issue with the right hon. Gentleman, directly and fundamentally. The right hon. Gentleman takes it as his premise that the whole business of election in this country is merely to elect Members of this House who will represent public opinion in this country, and that, therefore, it is right, and it is only the right thing, that the number of Members shall be absolutely proportionate to the electoral strength of various parties or groups of public opinion. I join issue with him entirely on that point. This House is not the end of the election, but it is the means to the end for which elections are devised. The actual Executive Government of the country is not carried on by this House but is carried on by the Cabinet. The purpose of the election is to enable the people of the country to decide by what sort of Cabinet, by what sort of Executive Government or party Government they will be governed in the next few years, or in the case of this Parliament perhaps in the next few months.

The history of our representative institutions seems to be like this. In the first place, Parliament was elected centuries ago simply on the principle of individual representatives being sent up to check the demands of the Crown in respect to taxation. This House, in particular, began to take an interest in other questions of government, and did it by saying that unless grievances were redressed by the Crown supplies would be refused. Gradually, it was seen that this was not enough, and that in order for this House to control the Government of the country the King's Ministers, who are the actual governors of the country, must be persons acceptable to this House. Therefore, it seems to me that the whole object of electing Members to this House is not merely to elect the Members themselves, not merely to elect the most suitable persons, not merely to elect persons who hold the most suitable views, but to elect parties to this House and not individual Members; primarily to elect the party which shall supply the Cabinet, who are the actual governors of the country under, more or less, the supervision of this House. The whole value of our constitutional system of government is that it is the Cabinet system. It is the system of the Cabinet which is not chosen by this House, but which belongs to that party in the House which commands the most confidence of the majority of the Members of this House, and as long as that end is attained it seems to me that the election has fulfilled its purpose, and I cannot find that at any time, at any rate until this Parliament, as a matter of history there ever has been a Cabinet in office in this country since representative institutions began to be really representative which has not represented a considerable majority of the electorate of the country.

That was true of the 1906 Parliament, There is no doubt that in 1906 the Liberal Government did represent a very considerable majority of the voters of the country, and though it is true that the Liberal party was somewhat over-represented in this House, after all that is a comparatively small matter. You did have a Government which the country intended itself to have when the election was in progress. When the Coalition majority was elected in 1918, though again the Coalitionists may have had over-representation, can anybody, either Liberal or Labour Member, deny that the country intended to have a Coalition Government, intended to have a strong effective Government, and that it secured that end by sending an overwhelming Coalition majority to this House? It is true that at this moment the two-party system, which is the only system under which Cabinet Government can be effectively worked, for the time being has been suspended. As a result we find what you will always find, when you have a minority party with the power to turn out the Government of the day. We find intriguing, we find threats: "If you do not support this Bill we will turn you out. If we cannot turn you out on this Bill, we will find an excuse for turning you out on something else." That is the kind of thing.

My objection to Proportional Representation is that it would lead to an over protection of minority parties, that it would lead to a continuance of the present system which, in my opinion, is wholly bad, and further that it would aggravate the present system by giving you what you have in France and Germany and other countries. Instead of two great parties, which are bound to come, that party and this party, you will have a series of groups, and then the Government of the country will be carried on as it is carried on in Prance, not on a principle, but by intrigue, intrigue between this little group and that little group, and by bargain and sale. I do not mean, of course, monetary considerations, but by one party selling a bit of its principles in return for another party selling its principles. At present, because you have not the two party system, which Proportional Representation would bring to an end for ever, you have now a Socialist Government which dare not bring in a Socialist Measure because it knows that hon. Members below the Gangway will at once combine with Members on this side to defeat it. You have, therefore, a pernicious system.

I would rather see the Labour party not only in office but in power than that the present system should be perpetuated in this House, because I am convinced that although under the present system we are escaping probably from some Measures which would be forced upon the country, much to the country's detriment, if hon. Members opposite were in a complete majority in this House, yet we are suffering the evils of a weak and ineffective Government. I call it a weak Government because it is a Government which cannot bring in, much less hope to pass, a single measure of Socialistic reform. I call any man a weak man who cannot act up to his principles. I call a Government a weak Government which cannot and dare not attempt to act up to its principles. It is because I believe that the proposals now before the House would perpetuate and accentuate the system, under which we are now suffering, of minority rule that I offer to this proposal my most uncompromising opposition.

Last year, when a Bill similar to this was before the House, I voted for it. To-day I am voting against this Bill. I want to give my reasons why I voted for the Bill introduced last year. I voted for it because there was no chance of anything being done, other than an indication being given of what support existed in this House. We cannot have Proportional Representation in this country—and I have always held this view —unless we have a change in our system of government also. We cannot have true Proportional Representation so long as we have the Cabinet system. If we want to be logical in a system of Proportional Representation, which I favour, we do not make any progress by going with half steps towards that principle. We only spoil the whole perspective of the principle when we take half measures towards this, and if we are going to have Proportional Representation that should not only be the privilege of the voter, but it ought to be the privilege of his representative also in a Cabinet, but I am up against the Cabinet system of government, the system of proportional representation is the only system that would fit in with any system that was not a Cabinet system.

But what I put to those who are putting forward this Bill in this halfhearted illogical fashion is, why in the Bill have they not sought to make it operate so that minorities would come into the real heart of the Government. We know that there are minorities in this House and on these benches, but so long as we have got a Cabinet system they never get into the heart of the Government. By the gracious privilege of the House we are allowed to ventilate our grievances to the few who may be sitting around, but when we have done that we are credited with having had the full representation of the minority which we represent. If the Liberal members had been sincere about this Bill they would, when they were in power, have given some indication that they were in favour of it. My personal feeling is that a change has taken place especially in the Liberals. Having been beaten on their own ground they not only desire to change the rules of the game but they want to shift the goal posts because they cannot play any more.

That seems to me to be a rather feeble attitude. It has been resented to-day. We have been told that a pistol is held at our heads and that if we do not vote for this Bill something terrible will happen. That kind of statement would make me vote against the Bill if nothing else did. The last speaker, like many hon. Members, used the expression "Socialist Government." This is hot a Socialist Government; it is a Labour Government. A Socialist Government would be something quite different. The reason why the term "Socialist Government" is so much repeated is that those who use it, not being acquainted with the outside public, think they are doing something in their own favour as anti-Socialists. But they are not. I had considerable experience of Proportional Representation in Glasgow in connection with the education authority. What happened there? It was not a question of inability to get experts to settle points. We had experts who were baffled. We started counting votes on a Saturday morning at 8 o'clock. Twelve o'clock Saturday night was reached, and then it was agreed to break the Sabbath day in order to finish the counting. We went on breaking the Sabbath by counting votes. What was the result? Everyone who came out of that counting place came out with utter disgust for the system. I did not agree with that opinion, and do not agree with it now, but when I have Proportional Representation I shall have it run through the system right into the Cabinet. A change in the system of Government is just as easy to carry as a change in the system of working that Government. The Cabinet system I regard as something that is finished. If we are to carry out reform, let us do it properly.

I am against the Cabinet system of Government. There ought to be a system of Government whereby, having committees at work, every section of the House would be very busily engaged upon that which it best understood. What happens to-day in the forming of a Cabinet? It has never been a question of the ability of the man, but of the relations and the power of the man. A man with special knowledge of things is shut out, and minorities never get near any of the real business. A Member is allowed to ask a question and he gets an answer, not given by the gentleman in charge but by someone else. That is not a system of government. It is what I call side-tracking everything that goes under the name of government. A proper system of Proportional Representation, carrying that representation through into this House, working through its Committees, and having the ordinary meetings of the House to decide, would be real Proportional Representation. But in the system to-day we have only a suggestion of it and not a very clear suggestion at that. The Mover of the Second Reading seemed to me to damn the whole Bill by the weakness of his statement. All that will happen under this Bill will be the distintegration of the organised forces voting to-day on subjects that apply to the whole community. The Proportional Representation under this Bill would mean a disintegration of forces making for the social good of the community.

I would not have ventured to address the House but that, having been for so long a period a Member of this House, I might have some experiences which are unknown to hon. Members. I have spoken on both sides on this question in my long and guilty past. I have spoken against Proportional Representation on grounds which have been stated to-day. I dread the dividing up of the country into groups of one-ideal fanatics, among whom might be vaccinationists, anti-vivisectionists, Pussyfoots and other faddists. I have had some experience under the old two-party arrangement of the group system. I remember that when Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill was brought forward, there came a division in the Liberal party. Heads were counted, not only daily and nightly, but at every hour of the day and night. We were told at 6 o'clock that a certain man was right, at eight that he had gone wrong, at nine that he had come right again, and at 12 that he was wrong once more. That made a profound impression on my whole attitude towards Parliamentary life. One great virtue of the party system is that you submerge the individual in the party, and by submerging him and making him follow the line of principle of his party, you relieve him from those appetites and temptations and personal feelings which are the weakness of every man. The group system encourages cranks. In the French Parliament the group system really makes a few individuals far more masters of the situation than the majority of the Chamber or the majority of the nation.

But we are living in a new world, and few people yet realise that fact. We are in a new world in this House of Commons, absolutely unlike any precedent in its long history. We have a minority in the House of Commons exercising all the power and authority of Government. We have three parties, and the very advent of that system has already brought about the most revolutionary change in the whole proceedings and spirit of the House of Commons. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced in his very first speech that the Government were not going to give up their responsibility because of snap votes or unimportant Divisions. Does anybody realise how that new Parliamentary system differs from the old? I have seen many snap Divisions. I have always regarded them as puerile and petty but momentous all the same. In my own day, a number of gentlemen by concealing themselves, by coming in at a different entrance to that by which we usually come in, by hiding themselves in bathrooms and other places of private resort in the basement story of the House of Commons were able to take the Whips by surprise, and on a question concerning cordite—of course the whole thing was a perfect sham—were able on a snap Division by a majority of seven to turn out the Government of the day. It is monstrous that a snap Division obtained by such methods should decide the life of Parliament or the destinies of a nation, and therefore I welcome the new departure of my right hon. Friend.

2.0 P.M.

Look what all that means. There is no use in my hon. Friend the Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) talking as he did. I am sorry to see Labour men who have still got the old taint of reaction hanging around them. I am sorry to find them opposing Proportional Representation because it seems to be a departure from the old methods. Their attitude should be that the more departure there is from old methods the better. Let us consider the effects of the present system in the House of Commons. A large number of the Members of this House represent not a majority but a minority of their constituents. In most of the triangular fights where a Conservative, a Labour man and a Liberal were engaged, the Conservative got in, but everybody knows that the votes of the Labour man and the Liberal put together represented a majority of the constituency as against the votes for the Conservative representative. Is it not absolutely wrong that a man should come here to represent a constituency, to speak in its name and to vote in its name who represents only a minority in that constituency? The hon. Member for Springburn wants to get rid of the Cabinet system. That is a tougher job than his energy and youth will enable him to carry out. I desire to speak of the Cabinet system as affected by this new departure in our Parliamentary procedure. The present system is that the Ministry and its policy and its Measures are absolutely at the mercy of the House of Commons. My right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government cannot pass any policy to-day or any legislation in this House unless it commands a majority of the votes in this House. The idea is not an original one, but I accept it that in other words the House of Commons under the group system of to-day has had restored to it what it always ought to have, namely, its omnipotence as an assembly of the representatives of the people to govern and to legislate. What was the old system? I have seen Bills passed in this House by large majorities which were not approved of by a majority of the Members of the House and which were yet voted for by a majority of the Members of the House. What was the reason? The Whips were put on. The influence of the Government was thrown on one side or the other and what was much more potent in securing votes, the honourable spirit of party discipline and partly loyalty, was invoked and brought into play and it may be said that there was nothing which a Government with a reasonable majority wanted in the shape of administration or legislation or policy but could be got through with or without the assent of the House of Commons. I think the system by which the assent of the majority of the representatives of the people is required to any legislation or any policy is far more democratic and reasonable than the old system. That being so, I invite my friends in all parts of the House to look at this question with a full appreciation of the new world which has been born since the War. I ask them, above all things, to dismiss from their minds the consideration of this Measure from the point of view of party interests. I do not believe myself that anybody can say with any certitude that Proportional Representation will be good or bad for any party. It will sometimes be good; it will sometimes be bad; but I think it will level itself all round, and if the Conservatives lose in one way the Labour party will lose in another and the Liberals in another. But, above all, I beg hon. Members to dismiss party spirit, party feeling or party interests and to consider the highest and best interests of the nation. Is the present system in the highest and best interests of the nation?

I am a passionate advocate of the rights of minorities. I have been in a minority all my life. I shall be in a minority when I am dying, and probably when I leave my last testament I shall be more in a minority than ever. Is the present system fair to minorities? I have always regretted that a large body of my fellow-countrymen were for many generations absolutely deprived outside Trinity College of a single representative in this House, though I myself belonged to the party which had the majority. There were, at least, 250,000 or 300,000 Southern Protestant Loyalists, as they were called in those days, many of the very best people in the country, who were absolutely without representation in the House of Commons, except for the close borough of Trinity College. That was not fair. Take the case of Wales. The total membership of Wales—I think it has been increased recently—was 34, and after two General Elections in quite modern times, every single one of the 34 Members for Wales was a Liberal. There was not a single Conservative in the representation of the country. I have been a good deal in Wales and have met many Welsh Tories as well as Welsh Liberals and1 Labour men, and the Welsh Tory is a very creditable and earnest member of his party. Perhaps he is more earnest because he is a member of a minority, but it is a monstrous falsification of the real principle of representation that all that large body forming the Tory minority in Wales should have been without a spokesman from that country in the House of Commons. People have criticised this Measure on the ground that it is not perfect, but I have never yet heard of any reform that has not been objected to on the ground that it is not perfect. All we say is, not that it is perfect, but that it is less imperfect than the system which it seeks to displace.

The main point on which we have to concentrate, in my view, is the credit, the authority, the reality, and the dignity of the House of Commons. I repeat what I have said a thousand times—it is one of my strongest and profoundest convictions—that the greatest of all the guardians of the might and liberty of the people of this Empire is the House of Commons. Destroy it, discredit it, weaken it, and you are removing the prop and foundation stone of all our liberties and our strength as an Empire. How are you going to maintain the House of Commons in that position? You certainly do not put it in that position if you make it unrepresentative; on the contrary, you weaken the authority. I hear some talk occasionally about what is called direct action, but any man in this country, in my opinion, who talks of an appeal to violence is really untrue and unfaithful to the great traditions of the race. But what is the one argument which could conceivably be used in favour of direct action? It is that the House of Commons does not represent the people, and that, as it does not represent the people, we must apply to our problems the methods which were intelligible in a country governed by an autocrat Czar, as in Russia, or a military oligarchy, as m Germany.

What is our great safeguard for the maintenance of the power, and the dignity, and the authority of the House of Commons? It is that, in the truest sense of the word, the voice of the people should be authentically expressed in its representation. Can you have that when you have a system which sometimes gives long periods of power to minorities over majorities? I will take a recent case, the case of the Parliament in which the late Mr. Bonar Law was the chief figure. He had nearly a hundred majority in this House, but he had a minority of the votes in the country, yet he governed this country for three, four, or five years, and controlled its destinies during all that time. Do you think it was a right state of affairs that practically the Parliamentary dictator of the country should be a man who represented, not a majority, but a minority of the voters of the country? I cannot understand anyone who professes to hold democratic principles upholding any such system.

As one of the few Members of this House who sit by the system of Proportional Representation, I think it is right that I should explain that I have imbibed for that system a very fundamental dislike, which I shall always express by voting against any proposal to introduce it to those parts of the realm which are happy enough yet to have escaped its influence. The hon. Member for Thornbury (Mr. Rendall), who moved the Second Reading of this Bill, seemed to me to have been inspired (as his speech, especially in its later parts, very clearly showed), by that very natural dislike which everyone may feel at being for long years always voting in a minority, and never seeing his own man returned for his constituency. But the method which the hon. Gentleman proposes for bringing to an end this unhappy state of affairs seemed to me, on consideration, to be one which would inflict a similar feeling of disgust and weariness, not only on individuals, but on whole constituencies throughout this Kingdom. The greater part of the English constituencies are still individual, with their own particular feelings, their own particular history, their own particular industries, and their own long memories. They are very individual. I do not, of course, allude to great sweeps of the London suburbs or to certain parts of West Yorkshire, but to the old constituencies, whether they are country regions like the Cotswolds or the Forest of Dean, whether they are old cathedral towns like York, or Gloucester, or Oxford, whether they are ports, or whether they are pleasure towns like Brighton or Blackpool. They all have individualities of their own, and they want to be represented by men of their own choice.

Now the system which is to be introduced by this Bill is to take, on some arbitrary geographical arrangement, most heterogeneous and dissimilar constituencies and throw them into groups of fives, or threes, or sevens, with the result, as I shall presently, I think, prove, that some of them will never have their own representatives. Let me take an example of what I mean when I talk of grouping heterogeneous constituencies. There is the great railway town of Swindon, in the middle of quiet North Wilts. On what principle can you group the whole of rural Wiltshire with Swindon? The rural districts, on the grouping system, will lose their power to have their own men. Take a similar instance in my own little County of Oxfordshire. We have two rural constituencies there, with, as it chances, at the present moment, two Conservative Members, but we have also the town of Oxford, where there is a 5,000 majority in favour of a Liberal. When those three are added together, when you get the whole of Oxfordshire made one entity, the result will be that there will be two Liberals and only one Conservative, instead of two Conservatives and one Liberal. Thus either in the Banbury district or in the Henley district the Conservative who is duly elected by the constituency will be turned out from the seat which he has won because of the enormous majority of Liberals polled in Oxford city. That may seem to the Liberals to be "a consummation devoutly to wish'd," but I will quote an opposite case.

In Berkshire there are three seats, Newbury, Abingdon, and Windsor. Newbury and Abingdon were won by Liberals, by not very large majorities, but Windsor was won by a Conservative by a large majority of from four to five thousand. The only result of grouping those three constituencies together will be that one of those Liberal seats will be lost, that is to say, that the clearly expressed wish of the constituency of Abingdon, or Newbury—as of Henley, or Banbury—that it should have a particular man, whether Conservative of Liberal, will be wholly frustrated, and the autonomy of the constituency will be crushed, because there is a large majority for the other side in a neighbouring constituency. It seems to me that many districts in England will in future have to make up their minds that they will never see their own man returned. There will be a survival of their party in the county: but no local majority, however strongly the party may give their votes, can be sure of seeing its own Member returned. The candidate will be swamped by the majorities given elsewhere. That is going to work out in an ill way for the old English system of self-conscious, self-directing constituencies. I regret it very much, for I do not think that England can be cut up as you would cut up a cheese, into smaller or larger slices, without a bad effect. The facts of the case are admitted.

But let us ask, what is to be done with two-Member seats. Let us take Brighton, which is a very definite entity in itself. It is surrounded by a rural district. It is clear, as has been said, that we are to see seven seats rolled into one group. Therefore, places like Brighton, in the middle of a rural district, will become mere portions of the rural country with a consequent destruction of individual character. It is practically putting an end to the self-contained, self-administered constituency, and, therefore, I very much object to the whole system founded on that basis.

I come to my second point. Not only will it destroy the old constituencies, but what has been up to now the local tie between the Member and his constituency. In many cases the man who represents the constituency has been distinguished in local work. And it may be that the constituency goes back to the 13th or 14th century, when the Member was a knight of the shire, and not a carpet-bagger thrown in from anywhere.

He represented the whole county then!

Oh, quite so. I do not object to that. But always he was a local man. In future party lists will have to be prepared. There will be six or seven candidates and competition for priority in place. I have just been to Italy and I noticed what occurred there in the elections. I saw the long lists of candidates and noted that the new system is likely to lead to the most awful internal wrangling and jobbery on the part of those who settle the order of the party list. For the man who gets the first place will be elected, and those placed low will not. Everything will depend on the drafting of the list. In view of the amount of wire-pulling, clever intrigue, suborning of agents carried out by the Central Local Council in the interests of one candidate or another, I am filled with dismay. I have seen what obviously is going on in Italy, and again, repeatedly, in France. It is a very bad thing to take away the choice of an individual from a constituency and to put it upon a group committee.

The third point I want to make is this— it has been already referred to by several speakers and looked at practically from the point of view of figures—in which the hon. Proposer opposite revelled—it is interesting. You cannot hope to induce the old two-Member constituencies to support this Bill. I sit for a two-Membered constituency and know that in such what happens is that unless the majority is well over double the numbers of the minority, the minority must have one of the two seats. That is to say, roughly speaking, at Oxford my colleague and myself have about 6,000 votes. Our opponent has 2,500 votes. Had he worked up to 3,001 votes he would have had to have had one of the two seats, according to this absurd system of Proportional Representation. That is to say that 3,001 votes would have had the same power in the House of Commons as 6,000 votes. The constituency might as well not send any Member to Parliament at all. But the thing does not merely affect in this way two-membered constituencies; it is the same for four-membered constituencies. In the latter case unless the majority has an enormous preponderence over the minority there will be a tie. Take a four-Member constituency with 60,000 votes on one side and 40,004 persons on the other, a proportion of three to two. The minority of 40,004 persons, although they number only two-thirds of the majority, must have two seats, since the first count in the vote will show that each of their candidates has the "one-fifth plus one" of the total votes required. So the larger party of 60,000 people would get only the same representation as the smaller party.

Some people may call this Proportional Representation, but I should call it proportional misrepresentation. Some people call it a way for the representation of minorities. I should call it a way for the misrepresentation of majorities. In this Bill, when groups of even numbers of seats are to be put together, it will not work, because the voice of the majority and that of the minority are represented by the same number of members, which is absurd. Thus the system of tieing, as has been said, will lead to the perpetual danger of there being never any stable and firm majority in the House of Commons. That, therefore, is another reason why I am against it. The boast of Proportional Representation is that practically everybody will have voted for someone who gets in. If I vote for No. 2 rather than for No. 3, because my own man, No. 1, has failed, I protest against that being regarded as a vote for No. 2. I think this fact knocks out the much repeated claim for Proportional Representation allowing everybody to have their choice.

There was another considerable misrepresentation of real statistics in calculating what would be the relative powers of parties in the last Parliament. This deviation came from the fact that there was a studious ignoring of all the uncontested seats, of which there were several score of Conservative, four Labour and 11 uncontested Liberal seats. Speakers ignored the fact that the uncontested Conservative seats were double or treble the uncontested seats of the other parties, and I think that fact vitiates their statistics, because you have to make an allowance for all the uncontested elections. Lastly there is the question of bye-elections. On this point I will leave it to those who have listened to the Debate to make up their minds. It seems to me that the case in reference to bye-elections was very weak indeed. The necessity for getting several hundreds of thousands of people to vote in a whole group of constituencies, because the Member for one of those constituencies is dead or has resigned, is not visible. Such are my views, and I implore those who are present to vote against this Bill.

In supporting the Second Reading of this Bill, I wish to deal with the matter on broader issues than those which have been stated in previous speeches. When we are making up our minds whether to vote for or against this Bill, I hope we shall do so, not in mere consideration of our personal interest in our own constituencies, nor in mere consideration of party advantage or disadvantage, nor in consideration of points of minor inconvenience on the one side or the other, but on the main lines of democratic principle and national advantage. The principal reason to condemn the existing system, and at the same time to point to Proportional Representation as being by far the most efficient of the possible alternatives is, that we are aiming at a truly democratic system of government on this side of the House, at all events, and I think I may say throughout the House. I submit that it is not sufficient, in order to secure a truly democratic system of government, that you should devote your attention merely to extending the franchise. You might do that to the utmost possible limit, and yet if you have no system of elections which will enable those voters when you have enlarged the number really to obtain effective representation in accordance with their wishes, you will still have no democratic system of government We have now reached the stage when we have gained enormous extensions of the franchise, not absolutely complete I agree, but we have gone very far, and I, for one, and my party are prepared to go further in the direction of the extension of the franchise. Nevertheless, I contend that we are a long way from being governed under any system of democratic control in this country. What we are governed by is not democracy but accident. In every election the actual result depends, not upon the will of the people, but upon purely accidental considerations. It depends to a certain extent on party manœuvring as to whether in any particular constituency you have two or three candidates or whether one withdraws in favour of another, and matters of that kind, and the net result of adding together the results in 600 and odd constituencies, each one of them depending upon accidental considerations of that sort, is that the final constitution of this Parliament depends upon accident, and nothing but accident.

A series of accidents in 1922 produced a large Conservative majority, and in 1923 almost a similar number of votes cast for the three parties in the country produced the totally different result we see in this Parliament. I think it is a monstrous thing that any person who professes to believe in democracy should be prepared to continue to support a system which is not democracy, but is simply a chapter of accidents. It is customary after the declaration of the poll for the successful candidate to move a vote of thanks to the Returning Officer, and, in doing so, to say that he intends to represent the whole of his constituency. I suppose we have all done that, but I do not know whether we have recollected that in saying that we were talking the most arrant nonsense. Of course, we cannot represent the whole of our constituents. We represent in all the things that matter, those of our constituents who agree with us, and not as a rule the whole of those who voted for us. Of course, we only represent the others in that very unimportant class of cases on those subjects that are so unimportant that it is not worth anybody's while to differ about them. Those are the only subjects in which we can truly say that we represent the opinions of the whole of our constituents.

On other subjects we represent only those who agree with us, and those who do not agree with us are not represented at all under present conditions. I say that that is the negation of democracy, and no person who believes in democracy can really defend such a system. We do not even represent all those who voted for us, because under modern Parliamentary conditions a very large number of electors cast their votes, not so much to get a particular candidate in, as to keep some other candidate out. That is the inevitable result of the application of modern Parliamentary conditions to a system in which three parties are contending for mastery when you have the system of election under which we are governed to-day.

I submit that that is an utterly shameful state of affairs. It means that we do not only represent our constituents, but that we are driven to seek support not from the people who agree with us, but from people "who do not agree with us, and who are merely induced to support us by the fear of some worse evil in some other part of the political firmament. That is a corrupting and a thoroughly unsatisfactory and undemocratic state of affairs. The main advantages which are claimed for the system of Proportional Representation is that it will at least enable each one of us to appeal for support from those who agree with us, from those whose sentiments are the same as our own, and to appeal for support on the strength of the proposals which we ourselves are prepared to advocate rather than by playing upon the fears aroused by the proposals of some other candidate. I do most earnestly submit, from the point of view of purity of public life and the sincerity of politicians, that it would be an immense advantage if we could faring about a result by which we could appeal en our real opinions alone and not angle, as every candidate has to angle under the conditions of to-day, for the support of people who do not really agree with us.

I think it might be well if I were to say a few words by way of clearing away some of the misapprehensions that seem to exist as to the actual method of operation of the system which is proposed, because certainly from some objections which have been stated, one might gather that it is not fully understood. The hon. Member for Oxford University (Sir C. Oman) spoke from experience of Proportional Representation. I entirely agree with him that Proportional Representation does not secure full opportunity, and cannot be satisfactorily worked, in a constituency so small as one consisting of only two Members. I agree with him, further, that the system works better in a constituency with an odd number of Members than in a constituency with an even number of Members. But even in the case to which he referred—in the University of Oxford, with only two Members—surely, if the minority can gain more than 3,000 votes and the majority party has only got 6,000 votes or less, that is to say, if the majority party has not got twice as many votes as the minority party, it is more fair that the minority party should have one representative than that it should have no representative at all, which would be the result under the system of election which is in force in every two-Member constituency at the present time. In the same way with the other illustrations which he took. It is quite true that by selecting figures which are seldom likely to occur in practice, you can show that the system of Proportional Representation does not work out absolutely and mathematically to give a representative to every voter. There are minorities so small that you cannot give a representative to them under any system. Nevertheless, even in the extreme instance which the hon. Member took, £ submit that anybody who followed his remarks must have seen clearly that the system of Proportional Representation would have given a fairer result than can be brought about by any other system.

What will happen under the system will be simply this. You will take the existing constituencies and the Boundary Commission will group them together into suitable groups. As a rule, those groups will follow the natural geographical divisions. The counties and cities, instead of being polled in divisions which have no historical backing, will be polled in their own natural county divisions, taken as a whole, and the task of the elector will be so simple that I venture to think that the educational test which will be imposed will be so slight that there will be hardly any voter who, if he wishes to record his vote properly, will fail to do so. All he will have to do will be to number off the candidates in the order of his preference. Surely that is a very simple task to impose upon any voter. That is the whole of the complication of the system so far as he is concerned. Any other complication arises entirely in the counting, which at the present time is entrusted to an expert staff and which would still be entrusted to an expert staff under the system of Proportional Representation. The method of counting is perfectly simple and absolutely and scrupulously fair. No amount of manœuvring on the part of party caucuses or anybody else can produce anything but a result absolutely reflecting the opinions of the voters. I contend, therefore, that the system proposed is both simple and fair.

There is one point with regard to the counting to which I ought to call attention, because it was referred to in the speech of the Noble Lady the Member for Kinross and Western (Duchess of Atholl) who moved the Amendment. When the count is complete under an election by the system of Proportional Representation, every voter will be represented by an elected Member. Every vote will have gone to an elected Member, except the small residue which will be left over when every elected Member has got his quota. If you imagine the quota to be 5,000 and you have five Members who have each got their 5,000, there must be less than 5,000 votes left, which have not gone to elect any particular Member. It therefore follows that the idea suggested by the Noble Lady that you would get some particular advantage by putting up a candidate so terribly weak that he would be bound to be at the bottom of the poll, and that therefore his votes would be distributed, is entirely fallacious. It could not happen under the system of Proportional Representation. It could not happen that you could gain any advantage by putting up a designedly weak candidate. You would inevitably spoil the symmetrical appearance of your team, and lose a certain amount of support in consequence.

There is another point on the practical side to which I wish to refer. It is suggested that there would be wangling, to use a colloquial term, in connection with the formation of the lists of candidates, and the hon. Member for Oxford University spoke of the system in vogue in France and Italy as illustrations of his point. That is a complete fallacy. The system in vogue in France and Italy today is not the system proposed by this Bill at all. It is the most diametrically opposite system to the system proposed in this Bill that has ever been invented. It is based on a team coming in, if it can, complete, and is not in the least based on the method of the transferable vote as proposed in this Bill. Therefore, any illustration taken from that system has no relation to anything that we are here debating. I was astonished that an hon. Member representing a University should have introduced such confusion into the discussion. It has no relation whatever to the subject about which we are talking.

The essential principle here is that the system of Proportional Representation leave? to the voter not only the choice of the party but also the choice of the candidate. We all know what manœuvres take place to-day before a candidate is adopted. He has sometimes to secure the support of his local association first; sometimes he has to secure the support of his party headquarters first, and then agreement has to be arrived at between the two, and, by whichever influence he is ultimately adopted as candidate, the general body of the electors in the constituency which he is to fight have no say in it at all. They have no say in it until they are presented with this dilemma at the actual poll: if they do not like the candidate, they have to vote against their party; or, if they put their party first, they have to vote for a candidate of whom they do not approve. The system of Proportional Representation will work in exactly the opposite way. It enables the individual voter to choose not only which party he will support, but also which of the candidates in that party he will seek to put at the head of the poll.

It is therefore in my submission the most democratic system which has ever been put forward and ever been worked in practice. I say "worked in practice" advisedly. Could there ever be conditions which would more severely test the working of any political system—of any system of election, than the conditions which have prevailed during the last few years in Ireland? When you find that under this system Proportional Representation has worked so satisfactorily in Ireland, that it has enabled elections in Southern Ireland to be carried out under the conditions of fierce dissension prevailing in that country in such a way as to give fair-representation to every section of the community and to leave no sections with any sense that they have not in the elections had a fair opportunity of securing representation—when you see it has given representation not only to the Protestant and Unionist minorities, but also to the various sections which constituted the old Nationalist party in Southern Ireland, so that the fierce quarrels in that country have been transferred satisfactorily to the Floor of Parliament instead of being a source of faction fights outside—that is the only way in which disputes of that kind can ever be settled, by giving fair representation to those concerned in the Parliament of their country—a fair representation which could never otherwise have been obtained—I think it will be agreed it has worked successfully in practice. If it be necessary to seek a final argument for the absolute fairness of this system, one need only point to the fact that in Northern Ireland they are seeking to abolish it, for the reason alone that it gives fair representation to the Nationalist minority in that part of Ireland, a representation which the majority does not like to see. That is the reason why.

Is the hon. Gentleman in Order in alleging reasons why the Parliament of Northern Ireland has done things within their own jurisdiction? Is he in order in alleging that that Parliament are about to pass an Act for an unworthy motive?

I did not hear any allegation of that kind made.

Would he not be quite in order in stating facts without imputing motives?

Of course.

I did not intend, and I certainly will withdraw, any imputation of any unworthy motive to the Parliament of Northern Ireland. I was submitting the facts of what has taken place and the reasons which I understood have been advanced for the step which was proposed to be taken. Those reasons were—

The hon. and learned Member is now proceeding to give the reasons. He was imputing unworthy reasons to the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

I understood him to have withdrawn any such reasons.

But he is about to repeat them.

I respectfully propose to pass from that point. I was submitting that this system has worked with complete fairness, and that it has secured completely fair representation to all sections of opinion in both Parliaments in Ireland, and I was urging that it would, therefore, secure absolutely fair representation to all sections of opinion in Great Britain if it were adopted. I will conclude with an appeal to hon. Members of this House on all sides to look at this matter from rather a higher plane from that in which it has been regarded by some speakers. All sorts of calculations may be made as to party advantages and disadvantages from the continuance of the present system. I will frankly confess that, as far as my party is concerned, we are always the victims of the unfair work- ing of the present system, and to that extent you may say that as a member of the Liberal party I am interested in seeking to get this Bill carried into law. I desire that my party may cease to be the victim of the unfair working of the present system. Is that a very unjust demand? Is it putting our desires very high? I beg to think not. Up till recently the party opposite have seen opportunities of gaining advantage from the working of that system. To-day, in so far as it does not produce a truly representative Parliament at the present time, it may or may not be that the advantage may oscillate between the party opposite and the party on this side above the Gangway. I do not know how that may be, but I feel that every Member of this House should look at this question from the ground of fairness, and of democracy; and on these grounds alone, and if the question is regarded from those points of view, then I venture to assert there has been no argument brought forward against this Bill which destroys the fundamental fact that it proposes to introduce a system which aims at giving fair representation to all opinion in this country, and at producing a fair mirror of those opinions in this House. It is the only system which can really carry into practical effect the principles of democracy in which we all so earnestly believe.

The hon. Gentleman who last spoke has referred to the case of Ireland as one in support of Proportional Representation. I should like to put before the House facts that are known to myself. As a matter of fact, until I took part in Parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland, I was a believer in Proportional Representation, and the arguments which my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. S. Roberts) put so eloquently this morning so appealed to me that out of my exiguous income I was at one time induced to give certain small sums in support of the propaganda of the association. But it was my experience of elections under Proportional Representation that convinced me that the system was a mistaken one, that it would be impossible to preserve the democratic principle to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and that it must inevitably lead to the exaltation of the party machine, and to the driving out of all independent persons. It is the fact that Proportional Representation is going to be abolished in Northern Ireland, and abolished there practically with the approval of the whole community, and if it is not going to be, abolished in the Irish Free State, the principle reason for keeping it would be that they like to have something different from what there is in this country. I think if this country adopted Proportional Representation, we should certainly find it abolished in the Irish Free State.

One of the misfortunes which the Coalition Government imposed upon Ireland was Proportional Representation. By an Act of 1919 they introduced it for local elections, and by the Act of 1920 for Parliamentary elections. Nobody in Ireland wanted it. I think every Member for Ireland, except one, voted against it, and we had to carry it out. We were subjected to courses of lectures explaining to us how we were to vote, and the lectures were successful. In Northern Ireland, the percentage of spoilt votes was only one—they are very intelligent people in the North of Ireland. But the expense of the election was great. It was five, six and seven times that of an election under the old system. The expense was so great that in certain local elections, where the town commissioners were limited in the amount of rates they might levy, they would have been bankrupt had they not got further powers to raise money for the extra expense of Proportional Representation. The hon. Member for the Springburn Division of Glasgow (Mr. Hardie) was shocked that the counting of votes had to go on in Glasgow on the Sabbath, having been started on the Friday. In the County of Down, where they have eight Members, and 150,000 voters, the counting went on for five days. Anyhow, the result of the elections in Northern Ireland was to convince everybody it was a system that ought not to have been imposed upon us, and ought to be abolished, arid it was, so far as local elections are concerned, abolished really with the approval of everybody. For the Parliamentary elections, it cannot be abolished until this year, but it is quite certain that it will be abolished, because there is really a universal demand for it to be abolished.

Did Tyrone and Fermanagh approve?

3.0 P.M.

There was no protest from them against the Act abolishing Proportional Representation. On the contrary, there was a mass of petitions from all parts of the country praying the Government to abolish it. What I did want to put to the House was my own experience as an elector. In my own constituency, we had to elect seven Members, and I think there were about 100,000 voters. I live in the northern part of the county, and when the names were submitted to us, we knew one of the candidates but none of the others, and we really could not find anything about them, except that they were approved by the party. Of course, we had to find out what their political complexion was, but that, really, was all that we knew about them, and that is all that the average elector can know about the candidates. He can know to what ticket they belong; and that is all really that he can know. The result of that will be that the party machines will always be able to put before the electors the candidates that they select. It will take out of the hands of the people the selection of their representatives, and put it in the hands of the party machine. It is because it is the negation and ruin of democracy that I have changed my views. I had thought it would really give a chance to the independent man of character and ability, who was a fit and proper person to represent a constituency in this House, to get elected under this system of Proportional Representation. I am convinced from the experience of the elections that the reverse is the truth. In a large constituency, no individual standing by himself is able to afford the time or the money, or can have the energy to go round and collect the necessary number of votes. He has to go in conjunction with others. There will have to be a party, an organisation with money behind it, and the independent man, under Proportional Representation, will be squeezed out. It is because the system as it worked in Ireland makes the party machine the power in the constituencies, and, if the power in the constituencies, the power also in this House, that we oppose Proportional Representation.

I rise for the purpose of saying, as briefly as possible, what is the position of the Government with regard to this Bill, but I am quite certain, for reasons that I will presently advance, the House will not be surprised to learn that we have followed, on this occasion, the example of a previous Government, by deciding to leave the question to the free vote of the House. I have to go further than that and say that, on no account, can we hold out any hope, especially in view of the delay in getting on with some of the other Bills that are awaiting Committee, that, should this Bill obtain a Second Beading, we would be able to afford it any facilities. There is a third statement that I have to make, that was also made by a previous Government with regard to this question, namely, that at this juncture we could not promise to bring in a Bill dealing with this question ourselves. Any Government having to approach this question at this moment must have regard to three main points. The first is, what position did this issue hold in recent General Elections? And here I am bound to say that I think no single party, in the election manifestoes that they issued either in 1922 or in 1923, submitted this as one of the issues.

Yes, in the Liberal manifesto.

I shall be very pleased, and will withdraw, if the hon. Gentleman will quote any statement in the Liberal manifesto dealing with Proportional Representation. I think I am right in saying that the late Government did not include it in the manifesto issued by the ex-Prime Minister, and we in the Labour party made no reference to it whatever. The only question in connection with electoral reform to which we referred in our manifesto, and I believe it was referred to in the Liberal manifesto, was the question of extending citizen rights to women between the ages of 30 and 21. There is a second consideration that must be kept in mind, and that is the division in all parties on this question. I have heard it debated over and over again in this House, and on each occasion we have had probably more cross-voting on the subject than on almost any other question that has been debated. I should also like to notice a third point which has had some influence upon the Government, and that is the past treatment meted out to this question by previous Houses of Commons. We cannot discuss any of these questions of electoral change without getting our minds back to that very important Conference which was presided over by your predecessor, Mr. Speaker, the present Lord Ullswater. That was a very important step. It was a joint effort by all parties in the House at that time to try to get some measure of agreement that could be enacted for bringing about great changes in the electoral arrangements of our country. Those of us who were in the House will remember the many discussions that took place on this question of Proportional Representation. Separate votes on Proportional Representation and the Alternative Vote were repeatedly taken in this House. This Bill tries to harmonise all the differences by including the two principles in one Measure.

That was done previously in the Report.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will just allow me to make my own speech. I said, and I repeat, that we had several discussions and divisions on the question of Proportional Representation and on the question of the Alternative Vote, as the result of the Report of the Speaker's Conference, and we had this anomalous position. We had this House putting in one question and the other House taking it out, we had the Bill sent back here, and then we had several divisions. I remember one division in which the majority was eight, and another in which the majority was one, all going to show that, even after this united effort had been made under Lord Ullswater, there was still the most acute division in this House, one division showing a small majority in favour of Proportional Representation. It was an experimental method of Proportional Representation. It was not the comprehensive method included in this Bill. Those who followed the doings of the House at the time of the Conference report will remember that it was characterised by its description as an experiment in Proportional Representation, and I think a good deal of the feeling of the House was towards giving it a trial as an experiment. But the overwhelming majority of the House, I think, favoured the other method, about which we have heard very little to-day, that is the second method included in this Bill, namely, that of the Alternative Vote. These questions have to be present in the mind of the Government. We are faced with no fewer than four occasions when the House of Commons rejected the principle of Proportional Representation. Having followed those debates very closely, I want to say here that I know of no Leader of the House who influenced its decisions on that occasion so much as the Leader of the Liberal party, who has spoken in favour of this Bill to-day. Here are the words that the right hon. Gentleman used on that occasion:

"I cannot be a party to putting into the melting pot the whole of the electoral areas of the country. I do not mind them going into the melting pot if you bring out better results, but to put them into the melting pot with the result of having a comparatively small number of vast, unwieldy, unworkable areas in which I think it would be far more difficult even than now to elect by your representative machinery the real opinion of the constituency, is a mistake."

I think it is a very serious position, for the right hon. Gentleman took a very prominent part in assisting to get through the various recommendations of Lord Ullswater. No one influenced the decision more than did the right hon. Gentleman, using such weighty words as I have just read.

When was that?

In 1918. [ Interruption. ] I hope my Friends below the Gangway do not take it unkindly that I have made this brief reference to somethink like sudden conversion. It is perfectly legitimate. I think to a very great extent it makes out the third point I was referring to, namely, the divisions in the parties and the past treatment of this question by the House.

What I have said up to now has been so far as the Government is concerned. Personally, as an old electioneerer, as one who has had a great deal to do in the last 30 years with it, I want to say that if this Bill had contained the second principle, which this House by a very large vote endorsed—in one of the Divisions there was a very large vote given in favour of the Alternative Vote— I think the attitude of the Government and of my colleagues on these benches would have been vastly different from what it is to-day.

Will you bring in a Bill to that effect?

I have already said that, with the pressure upon the time of the House and the number of Bills which are waiting, it is not possible for the Government at this stage to make any definite promise. I can promise that we are going to go very fully into the position. We pre not satisfied with the status quo. No one can be. The majority of the Members of the House have been against the status quo for a long time, but the difficulty is to ensure that with any new system you are not going to perpetuate some of the worst evils or, at any rate, some of the worst anomalies of the existing system. I hope that my hon. Friends below the Gangway on this side of the House will pardon this reference, and I hope that the right hon. Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman) will not be too hard upon us and not press us too much. We have been in office three months, and he comes here and asks me whether we will bring in a Bill. I can retaliate, having been a Member of this House for nearly 21 years, and say that his Government, and the Government of which he was once a Member, came in in 1906 and were in until 1914, and we Labour Members were struggling to support them, and we were never consulted. There are many complaints in the newspapers to-day about no consultation, but, at any rate, we were never consulted.

My right hon. Friend knows that that is not a statement of fact.

I challenge contradiction. I have this advantage that during some of those years I was a Whip. My right hon. Friend was not a Whip and, therefore, he would not be in those negotiations that are known as "the usual channels" as much as I was. Therefore, it does not quite become my right hon. Friend to come here and say, "Will the Government promise us a Measure?" I can only say this, that they must deal a little patiently with us. If we are to bring in a Measure, it will not be because they find themselves in the difficulty to-day which they ignored when we were in a similar difficulty.

You could not turn us out then.

The hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. H. H. Spencer) is talking about turning us out. All I can say is, let them get on with the job. If we are to be threatened like this, if because we will not go their way on all occasions, and certainly on this occasion, and if we will not promise to bring in a Bill, as my right hon. Friend suggests, we are to be threatened with being turned out, I can only say, "Get on with the job." I am quite certain of this, that it is not going to make for good government if every time the Labour party feels that it cannot take a certain course this threat is to be held over their heads. We are trying to govern under probably more difficult circumstances than any other Government in the history of this country, and I think our hon. Friends below the Gangway might remember that. I can go no further than to say that this matter will not be lost sight of. The situation is very difficult, but we must have time to consider very carefully what would be the effect, not on the question of parties —none of these matters should be settled on mere party grounds—but nationally. Personally, and I am speaking only for myself, I should have liked to see another Speaker's Cnference, but there again give us a chance. I can assure the House that the matter will not be lost sight of, and if the Government consider that this is the best way of dealing with the subject I will only be too glad to come before the House with proposals.

I hope that the House will not fall in with the last suggestion that we should have another Speaker's Conference on this matter, which should be fought out on the Floor of this House. I speak as one who believes in the Alternative Vote, and I did my best in 1918 to bring that about, but I am opposed to Proportional Representation. I am even more opposed to this curious mixture of the two. Those who propose this mixture do not seem to realise what they are proposing. Apparently their idea is that in boroughs we are to have Proportional Representation, but for most of the county seats we are to have the Alternative Vote in single-Member constituencies. The single-Member constituency has a way of exaggerat- ing majorities—that is why I am in favour of it—very largely. Proportional Representation has a way of making those majorities very small. So the proposal is to abolish all the weight of the majority in the boroughs and to leave it in full in the counties. The result of this mixture will be to cut down the vote of the majority in the boroughs, where you have got Proportional Representation, and to make the parties very nearly equal, and then in the rural districts and the counties generally you will have the present arrangement with the exaggerated majority.

What can be more grossly unfair to the boroughs than that? And that practical point to which I claim there can be no answer has not yet been taken into consideration by the authors of this curious mongrel of a Bill. The two things, Proportional Representation and the Alternative Vote, are opposed to one another. I believe that all that is good in this Parliament is based very largely upon the single-Member constituency. Though I have been in this House all day I have only heard one speech which made me hesitate in my views, and that was the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith). He did bring forward certain things which had made him change his mind. I quite admit that the Alternative Vote will not get rid of those curious phases, such as we had in Wales for a few years, of having all the Members of one way of thinking, or as we have had in Birmingham for 40 years. But Wales is Wales and Birmingham is Birmingham, and Wales has already changed for the better and Birmingham soon will. We shall see to that.

But in my view the first practical objection to Proportional Representation, that it abolishes the single-Member constituency, is only one. I speak as a practical electioneer; I have fought in nine elections or more—at one time six in six years—and I speak feelingly on this matter. Not long ago I represented a rural constituency in Norfolk with 120 parishes. I calculated that I could get round that division with 60 meetings. The neighbouring constituencies are almost as big as that one. Under this arrangement, if you have Proportional Representation all round, everybody who knows Proportional Representation knows that about seven is about the right number of constituencies and fewer than five is bad. You would have at least five huge agricultural areas all thrown in together, and a candidate who wanted to get round the constituency would have to deal with something like 300 meetings.

Now I represent a constituency in Cheshire. If this Bill were carried, my division, which is mainly industrial but partly agricultural, would be linked up with a number of rural districts. I see opposite Members with whom I would be linked. What would be the result? The Siamese twins would be nothing to it. We should be there with, say, five more agricultural districts in Cheshire. At the last election I think it cost me something over £60 to issue an election address. If there were five divisions I suppose it would cost me something over £300. Surely we are going to send our election addresses to all the people? We are told that we can send it out by sharing the expense with four others. But suppose that I do not agree with the four others? I have always rather prided myself on my election address and I do not want to send out what the others send out. I think it would be a rotten system to pool our views and intelligences in this way. Take another thing. I represent an industrial district without being a member of a trade union. [HON. MEMBERS: "You are."] I am a member of a trade union that is not yet politically conscious—not politically conscious, but politically active.

This is a very real point. Take the question of election expenses. If my constituency was represented by a trade unionist the trade union would find the election expenses. As it is, the constituency is not so represented, and my constituents are good enough to find the expenses by subscriptions. What would they do if I did not appeal to them as wishing to be a Member of that Division but as one of the Members for Cheshire? I and every man in that position would then have to find his own expenses, instead of being returned, as he ought to be returned, by the efforts of his constituents. [ Laughter. ] I can understand the position of those who know that they would not be so returned and their merriment at my remark, but my constituency does me the honour of returning me in that way, and I think that that is the proper way to be returned. We have heard to-day certain jovial reflec- tions upon the personal touch. I believe in the personal touch. I am one of the people who have never submitted either to the opening of a bazaar or to subscribing to anything. I regard it as politically degrading; I have never done it, and my action has never done me any harm. But on this question of the personal touch in politics, I do not think one can possibly exaggerate its importance. Supposing you had great groups of divisions of three, five and seven, what chance would an independent Member ever get of being adopted except at enormous and fabulous expense, and the people who are most capable of being adopted as independent Members are not generally people who can afford enormous expense. It would be overwhelmingly expensive for any independent Member and so, instead of the independence of the present system, you would have the machine-made politician, and instead of the present House of Commons you would have an assembly of political Robots.

That is what you are coming to if you get rid of the present system, and replace it by the machine-made system which is suggested. I do not care whether it succeeded or failed in Ireland. From what I have heard I rather think it has failed. Whether it succeeded or failed elsewhere, we in this country have our own ideas and one of our ideas is to educate the electorate by constant personal touch with the electors. Nothing could be worse for this country and its growing political consciousness than to break down the system of educative meetings covering the whole country which we have at present. No party that believes in its principles can possibly want to break down that system. It is a perfect certainty that you will break it down if you once do away with the single-member constituency. Anything that means taking the interest out of politics, taking the interest of the elector away, making him think he is part of a machine and not part of a great political system, is bad for this country. What I say about the single-member constituency is that in that way alone you get men of the best character into this House. A man has to face a good deal in the scrutiny of a constituency, and a constituency will often reject a man whose character does not fit him to be a Member and they will often stand by a man when they feel he is being abused, because they know better than the people who are abusing him. Directly you get rid of that personal touch, that almost affectionate relationship between Members and their constituencies, the personnel of this House will suffer and the Government of the country will surfer accordingly. Does anyone really believe that our present system of three groups, more or less equally divided, is the best system? Yet under Proportional Representation you will unquestionably make that system almost the rule and not the exception in this country.

I said at the beginning of my speech that I believed in exaggerated majorities, simply because I wanted to see the machine work. I do not wish to see a Parliamentary system under which the majorities are so small that attendance has to be so close as to be an intolerable burden upon Members. I want to see a House which is humanly possible. I want to see a House which represents the people, and is not merely a photograph of the people. I want to see a House which represents them in broad, and not merely in narrow particulars. I believe our present system could be altered. I believe our present system is unfair, particularly to middle parties. I am wholeheartedly in favour of the Alternative Vote, and will do anything I can in the interests of fair play to bring it about. In saying that I cannot speak for all my friends here, but I know I can speak for a good many of them. We are not opposing this Bill because we want to do anything unfair. I do not agree with the hon. Member who said he would not know what to do with his second vote. When I was standing in one of the divisions of Cheshire, I gave advice very clearly to the people as to what they should do in other constituencies around where no Labour candidate was standing. I have been too long associated with some of my friends on the right to have the doubts about them that some of my friends on my left at present hold, and I have been too long identified with my friends on the left to share any doubts that are held by my friends on the right. But this is not a matter of a party advantage.

I believe that this system, with all its fallacious suggestions of fair play, is a system utterly unsuited to the needs of this country and its growing democratic forces. If they think it worth trying, let them try it on some of the big municipalities—I would suggest Birmingham, for instance; I do not believe in it at all— but do not let them start with this House of Commons, with this country so far as Parliament is concerned. Let us be much more sure before we try this system anywhere. The cost, as I say, would be ruinous to independent men. Independent men would not be chosen, and there are all sorts of practical difficulties like the tremendous force the motor car would get. It is an unfair force now, and if you have these great constituencies, representing three or four hundred thousand electors, it will mean that that force of wealth and influence will be enormously increased. However you look at it, whether from the point of view of the men and women who will be returned or from the point of view of the men and women who will return them, who do take a much closer interest in people they know than in people they are merely told they ought to vote for, this system of Proportional Representation in ray view, stands condemned.

Like my hon. and learned Friend who spoke a few moments ago, I have not always been as keen against this as I am now. I have always believed in the other system, but I have only gradually come to regard this as a vital question that has to be vigorously opposed in the interests of the democracy of this country; and I appeal to everyone who wants an educated electorate and fair, clean fighting for great political issues, to stand by the present system of single Member constituencies, and have nothing to do with new-fangled systems that have not really been properly thought out, and have nothing whatever to do with the genius of our people that has made our political system an example for the world.

May I make a personal explanation? I challenged the Home Secretary when he said that Proportional Representation was not mentioned in any manifesto. I went out —and was laughed at for so doing—and fetched documentary evidence, and I find that in the manifesto issued by the Liberal party in the General Election of 1922, the 10th point set out reads as follows:

"Readjustment of our electoral system by the introduction of Proportional Representation."

I made my statement on the 1923 manifesto, signed by the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) and the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George).

I simply challenged it that he said "any manifesto."

If the Liberal manifesto did proclaim itself in favour of Proportional Representation, it was singularly unconvincing to the electors, because they seem not to have been attracted by it. I want to speak for two or three minutes only, and I do not want to stand between the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery), who is intending to wind up the Debate, but, as he will speak from this bench, I want to say that, although I do not speak for my party, I think I shall express the view of a great in any of my colleagues and of those with whom I am in the habit of acting. I am not going to vote for this Bill. If I had time. I would like to show that the practical evils which the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) put before the House will not be met by the proposals of this Bill, and, indeed, that those evils are transitory evils which are just as likely to be met by our present system as by any change that is proposed in this Bill. I have not got the time to do that, but I want, if I may, in almost a summary form, to give the reason why I have changed my mind.

I have frequently voted for Proportional Representation in the past. But in the past we have had a relatively small electorate. We have had an electorate which was accustomed to vote. In our wisdom we have given the vote to some 20,000,000 of people who are not yet accustomed- to the vote, and have only voted as to 60 per cent. of their numbers, in the last two Elections. We arc asked to accept this Bill, which means two systems, as I understand it—the Alternative Vote, to be followed by Proportional Representation. While they have not, in some cases, yet learned one system, we are asking them to learn two new systems, and I do not believe that that will give proper representation to democracy.

The other practical objections have been noted by previous speakers—that of the enormous constituencies. One knows too well what it is, with the large electorate we now have to deal with, even to contemplate the attempt to keep in personal touch with five times that number: it seems to me to be an almost impossible suggestion. There 16 a real danger here of loss to the country. So long as the constituency knows its Member, it may disagree with him about this or that subject, but at least it does feel that it has something to do with Parliament, because it knows its Member, and on some points at least it does agree with him, and does feel that it is represented by him. But if you are going to lose that personal touch, very few hon. Members will be returned. I undertake to put up a list of five or seven well-known people who would wipe out any hon. Members here in almost any constituency.

Suppose you put up for election Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, what hon. Member would have the slightest chance of standing against these people who are so well known? Is that real representation of democracy? Worse still, that system will perpetuate the Three-party system, or, perhaps, render the position in this House not merely one of three parties, but of four, five, six or seven groups. That is a system which, in my judgment, will debase Parliament and lead to worse lobbying than that which we have seen going on lately. Quite recently we have had the exhibition of Liberal Members supporting the Labour Government. To-day they are not supporting the Labour Government. They are interrupting the Home Secretary, gibing at him, and in fact they feel that they have been bilked. They have given services and are not receiving the pay. That is not a position that we want to perpetuate in this House, if it can possibly be avoided.

In my judgment Proportional Representation is likely to perpetuate it, and not to put an end to it. Before we make a great change of this sort with a new electorate we require further experience, not only in the constituencies, but also of the parties in this House. Are we or are we not to have three, four or more parties? Let us find out by experience before we attempt to change the method of representation. If we are to have permanently three, four or five groups in this House, then it may be necessary to change the present system of representation; but that is not now the position. In view of our present experience, I say that it would be an immense mistake to put the constituencies into the melting pot. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley has changed his opinion. I have changed mine.

I agree with my right hon. Friend that if the result of introducing Proportional Representation were to stereotype a three-party or a multiple party system I should regard it as unfortunate. This matter has never been discussed as a party question in this House. It is equally true that on every occasion consideration of the immediate future advantage of the various parties has weighed a little in the consideration, and at this moment I think there can be no doubt that among my hon. Friends behind me and my hon. Friends opposite there is something of a feeling that this is a Measure introduced and largely supported with the object of perpetuating the existence of the Liberal party. I hope my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite will acquit me at any rate of any desire to do such a thing as that. If I thought that possible I certainly should not vote for this Measure. What I would suggest is that the consummation which we on this side and hon. Members above the Gangway so naturally and so rightly desire is neither going to be advanced nor checked by the introduction of this reform.

As long as there is a substantial body of citizens who wish to be represented by Liberal representatives in Parliament, so long will there be a Liberal party in this House, although its representation here may from time to time be altogether out of any proportion to what that representation ought to be. They had a representation of only 25 a short time ago and they have over 150 to-day. I do not think that kind of thing is good for this House or for the country. On the other hand, if once any party ceases to command the support of a substantial proportion of the electorate, even Proportional Representation will not preserve it. Again Proportional Representation will have no effect upon that force, the pressure of the two-lobby system, to which the hon. Member for South Hackney referred in his very effective Tory speech.

In the very few minutes which remain I will say only a word or two about the many detailed objections which have been urged to this reform, and which I think were answered in advance in the admirable speech made by the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. S. Roberts). I will sum them up in this sense. They are all based on an entirely exaggerated assumption as to the extent of the change which this reform would introduce. They are based on the assumption that instead of compact, manageable and workable constituencies each candidate will have to attempt to secure a clear majority of the suffrages of a vast electorate and to pay the expense of an election on that scale. That is not what will in fact result. The Noble Lady who so very ably moved the rejection of this Bill spoke of the tie between Members and their constituencies. I believe there is no reason why that tie should not continue, and why it should not be accompanied by what also exists to-day, a tie outside his constituency in a wider relationship with the immediately surrounding local area. Any one of us who represents a great urban constituency knows that for certain purposes his whole work is within his constituency; but there are many purposes, whether of subscriptions to hospitals or of appeals of societies, with regard to which he finds himself a Member for his city as well as the Member for the particular group of wards which make up his constituency.

I do not believe that under Proportional Representation that system will be very greatly changed. We shall each one of us stand primarily for our Division, in which we shall secure the quota which is sufficient for our return. We do not require under Proportional Representation to have a majority of the whole of the constituency. It is to that area that we shall address that personal appeal to which the hon. Member for Crewe (Mr. Hemmerde) attaches such importance— the literature written by ourselves by which we shall endeavour to keep in intimate, personal touch. It is there that we shall pay our contributions to places of worship, hold our meetings, and so on. But what we shall secure by the grouping of the constituencies is the redress of the hazards of the present system. I would call it not the amalgamation of existing constituencies in some entirely new scheme so much as the grouping of existing constituencies for the purpose of mutual reinsurance both for the man who has done good works that he may be again returned, and for the voter that his vote shall be of real effect and value in the government of the country.

I agree about the immense importance of personality and of personal influence. But do not let us delude ourselves with the idea that personal record and personal character are the only things of account in the present system. We all know very well the immense influence of the hazard of the constituency to which a man is first committed and perhaps committed for the whole of his political career. In one constituency a Member, however little known, either in the House of Commons or in the constituency, will be returned for ever because of the large local majority, and in another constituency a man of national record, of unremitting attendance here and in his constituency, because of the fluctuating margin in that constituency, will again and again be exposed to the risk of the destruction of his whole political career. The grouping which we are suggesting does in a large measure rectify that hazard. There is one thing I would also say, I believe that under this system personality will have a greater opportunity. But personalities will not have the same effect, because you substitute for a conflict in which you wish to disfranchise and eliminate your opponent a competition for the suffrages of the electors in which all who can secure their fair share of public confidence will also secure their rightful position in this House.

May I, in conclusion, say something about the broad question. This matter is only worth ventilating in so far as it may contribute to the greater efficiency of this House of Commons, which is the finest instrument for the self-expression of a nation that has ever yet been devised. Our whole system of responsible Parliamentary Government is based on the coincidence and co-operation of an executive in Parliament enjoying the support of the majority, but taking into the account the views of the minority—with the whole temper, views and wishes of a great nation. The more faithfully this House is the express image of the nation the more effectively can the great function of responsible government be carried out. The more continuously successive Governments carry it out the better it is for the nation. The more you expose Parliament to violent arbitrary fluctuations which do not represent the people's will the worse it is for the government of this country and for the credit of Parliament. No one, and least of all myself, advocates changes merely for the sake of change when things are working tolerably well. The right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) has, at any rate, given his conviction that what changed his view was the belief that under present circumstances the existing system is working less well. The element of hazard has increased. The right hon. Gentleman quoted the Parliaments of 1906 and 1918. I think the last two elections are in a sense even more convincing. You had in 1922 our party returned, not by a clear majority of the electors, but by the hazard of the electorate. I do not believe that is a good thing, and if we had continued in. office treating that accidental verdict as the final verdict of the nation, we should have been exposed to violent reactions the consequences of which might have been very unfortunate. I may say one thing too about the Election of 1923. It would be overstating the case to say that our party or its policy were rejected by the nation by reason of the fact that we were not able to achieve a greater success than we had, in fact, achieved at the previous election. There is one very strong reason I should like to urge why we ought in fairness to consider this change. The old system worked tolerably well in spite of its theoretical weakness, because it was based on an historical growth, on political divisions going back to the time of the Civil Wars or the struggles of Dissent for recognition, the swing of the pendulum assigning a majority now to one and now to another. But if your division is based on economic and class interests evenly distributed over the greater part of the country the danger is that the majority will permanently secure all the representation. There are many other reasons I should like to urge, it time permitted, but I do suggest that from the point of view of placing Parliamentary government on a sure basis this Bill should be given further consideration.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 144; Noes,238.

Division No. 63. ]]	AYES.	[ 4.0 p.m.
Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke	Harris, Percy A.	Murrell, Frank
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)	O'Connor, Thomas P,
Allen, R. Wilberforce (Leicester, S.)	Haycock, A. W.	Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Healy, Cahir	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Ammon, Charles George	Hillary, A. E.	Owen, Major G.
Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry	Hindle, F.	Perry, S. F.
Ayles, W. H.	Hobhouse, A. L.	Phillipps, Vivian
Barclay, R. Noton	Hodge, Lieut.-Colonel J. P. (Preston)	Pilkington, R. R.
Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar (Banff)	Hogge, James Myles	Pringle, W. M. R.
Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)	Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie	Raffan, P. W.
Berkeley, Captain Reginald	Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)	Raffety, F. W.
Birkett, W. N.	Hudson, J. H.	Ramage, Captain Cecil Beresford
Bondfield, Margaret	Johnstone, Harcourt (Willesden, East)	Rathbone, Hugh R.
Bonwick, A.	Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool, W. Derby)	Robertson, T. A.
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)	Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)
Bramsdon, Sir Thomas	Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. (Bradford, E.)	Royle, C.
Briant, Frank	Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)	Rudkin, Lieut.-Colonel C. M. C.
Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)	Kay, Sir R. Newbald	Scrymgeour, E.
Brunner, Sir J.	Kedward, R. M.	Seely, H. M. (Norfolk, Eastern)
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Keens, T.	Sexton, James
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton	Kenyon, Barnet	Shinwell, Emanuel
Chapple, Dr. William A.	Lambert, Rt. Hon. George	Simon, E. D. (Manchester, Withington)
Collins, Patrick (Walsall)	Laverack, F. J.	Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Comyns-Carr, A. S.	Law, A.	Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)
Costello, L. W. J.	Leach, W.	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Darbishire, C. W.	Lessing, E.	Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)
Davies, David (Montgomery)	Lindley, F. W.	Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, S.)
Dickie, Captain J. P.	Linfield, F. C.	Spero, Dr. G. E.
Dodds, S. R.	Livingstone, A. M.	Stranger, Innes Harold
Dudgeon, Major C. R.	Loverseed, J. F.	Tattersall, J. L.
Dunn, I. Freeman	McCrae, Sir George	Terrington, Lady
Falconer, J.	McEntee, V. L.	Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)
Finney, V. H.	Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.	Thompson, Piers G. (Torquay)
Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.	Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)
Fletcher, Lieut.-Com. R. T. H.	Maden, H.	Thornton, Maxwell, R.
Foot, Isaac	Mansel, Sir Courtenay	Tinker, John Joseph
Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)	Martin, F. (Aberdeen & Kinc'dine, E.)	Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd	Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.	Varley, Frank B.
Gorman, William	Millar, J. D.	Ward, G. (Leicester, Bosworth)
Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)	Mills, J. E.	Williams, A. (York, W.R., Sowerby)
Gray, Frank (Oxford)	Mitchell, R.M. (Perth & Kinross, Perth)	Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Griffith, Rt. Hon. Sir Ellis	Mond, H.	Williams, Maj. A.S. (Kent, Sevenoaks)
Grigg, Lieut.-Col. Sir Edward W. M.	Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.	Willison, H.
Groves, T.	Morris, R. H.	Wolmer, Viscount
Guest, Capt. Hn. F.E. (Gloucstr., Stroud)	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)
Guest, Dr. L Haden (Southwark, N.)	Morrison-Bell, Major SirA.C.(Honlton)	Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)	Morse, W. E.
Harney, E. A.	Moulton Major Fletcher	TELLERS FOR THE AYES. —Mr. Rendall and Mr. S. Roberts—Mr. Rendall and Mr. S. Roberts
Harris, John (Hackney, North)	Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)

NOES.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Broad, F. A.	Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Buchanan, G.	Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Alden, Percy	Buckle, J.	Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Alexander, Brg.-Gen. Sir W. (Glas.C)	Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James	Curzon, Captain Viscount
Apsley, Lord	Bullock, Captain M.	Dalkeith, Earl of
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.	Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Baird, Major Rt. Hon. Sir John L.	Butt, Sir Alfred	Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Baker, W. J.	Caine, Gordon Hall	Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovll)
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.	Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-	Cape, Thomas	Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Banton, G.	Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Deans, Richard Storry
Barnes, A.	Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)	Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Barnett, Major Richard W.	Charleton, H. C.	Dukes, C.
Barnston, Major Sir Harry	Chilcott, Sir Warden	Duncan, C.
Batey, Joseph	Clarry, Reginald George	Eden, Captain Anthony
Becker, Harry	Clayton, G. C.	Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Beckett, Sir Gervase	Cluse, W. S.	Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Cobb, Sir Cyril	Forestier-Walker, L.
Berry, Sir George	Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Betterton, Henry B.	Cohen, Major J. Brunel	Galbraith, J. F. W.
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Blundell, F. N.	Conway, Sir W. Martin	Gates, Percy
Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart	Cope, Major William	Gavan-Duffy, Thomas
Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.	Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.	Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Brass, Captain W.	Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn. N.)	Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John
Brassey, Sir Leonard	Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)	Gillett, George M.
Gosling, Harry	Lowth, T.	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Gould, Frederick (Somerset, Frome)	Lumley, L. R.	Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)
Greenall, T.	MacDonald, R.	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Greene, W. p. Crawford	Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-	Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Coins)	Mackinder, W.	Scurr, John
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Sheffield, Sir Berkeley
Gretton, Colonel John	Makins, Brigadier-General E.	Shepperson, E. W.
Grundy, T. W.	March, S.	Sherwood, George Henry
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)	Marks, Sir George Croydon	Short, Alfred (Wednesday)
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.	Marley, James	Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ.,Belfst)
Hall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. (Dulwich)	Mason, Lieut.-Colonel Glyn K.	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)	Maxton, James	Smith, T. (Pontefract)
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvll)	Meller, R. J.	Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Middleton, G.	Snell, Harry
Hardie, George D.	Milne, J. S. Wardlaw	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Hartington, Marquess of	Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)	Steel, Samuel Strang
Harvey,C. M. B.(Aber'n & Kincardne)	Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Stephen, Campbell
Hastings, Somerville (Reading)	Montague, Frederick	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Hayes, John Henry		Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-
Hemmerde, E. G.	Morden, Colonel Walter Grant	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Henderson, W. W. (Middlesex, Enfield)	Murray, Robert	Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel	Naylor, T. E.	Thorne, W. (West Horn, Plalstow)
Hirst, G. H.	Nesbitt, Robert C.	Thurtle, E.
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.	Nichol, Robert	Tout, W. J.
Hood, Sir Joseph	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)	Turner-Samuels, M.
Howard, Hon. D. (Cumberland, North)	Nixon, H.	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.	Norton-Griffiths, Sir John	Viant, S. P.
Hughes, Collingwood	O'Grady, Captain James	Wallhead, Richard C.
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer	Oman, Sir Charles William C.	Warrender, Sir Victor
Iliffe, Sir Edward M.	Palmer, E. T.	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Pennefather, Sir John	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Isaacs, G. A.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Wells, S. R.
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Welsh, J. C.
Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)	Philipson, Mabel	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
James, Lieut.Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Pielou, D. P.	Wheler, Lieut.-Col. Granville C. H.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)	Pilditch, Sir Philip	Whiteley, W.
Jewson, Dorothea	Potts, John S.	Wignail, James
John, William (Rhondda, West)	Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton	Williams, David (Swansea, E.)
Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)	Rawlinson, Rt. Hun. John Fredk. Peel	Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B. (Kenningtn.)
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Raynes, W. R.	Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)
Kennedy, T.	Reid, D. D. (County Down)	Windsor, Walter
Kindersley, Major G. M.	Remer, J. R.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
King, Captain Henry Douglas	Remnant, Sir James	Wise, Sir Fredric
Lamb, J. Q.	Rentoul, G. S.	Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)
Lansbury, George	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.	Worthington- Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)	Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)	Wright, W.
Lawson, John James	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward
Lee, F.	Ritson, J.	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Romeril, H. G.
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Ropner, Major L.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES. —Duchess of Atholl and Mr. Herbert Morrison.—Duchess of Atholl and Mr. Herbert Morrison.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Locker-Lampson, Com. O, (Handsw'th)	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Second Reading put off for six months.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.

Adjourned at Twelve Minutes after Four o'Clook until Monday next (5th May).

Hansard

Volume 172: debated on Friday 2 May 1924

House of Commons

Private Business

Orders of the Day

Representation of the People Act (1918) Amendment (No. 2) Bill