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TABLE G.--PART II. Majorities of 1895 by Groups of Percentage--Contd.

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A. Unionist.

(a) 1. Eddisbury 2. Ross

3. Stratford 4. Tottenham 5. Horncastle 6. Sleaford 7. Walthamstow 8. S. E. Essex 9. Kingston

(b) 10. Harwich

B. Gladstonian. (a) 1. Chester-leStreet

Total 11

Borough.

A. Unionist. (a) 1. Preston (1) 2. Liverpool, Kirkdale

3. Cent. Hull 4. Worcester 5. Gravesend 6. Brighton (1) 7. N. Hackney 8. S. Islington 9. S. St. Pancras 10. E. Marylebone 11. W. Marylebone 12. N. Paddington 13. Chelsea 14. Woolwich 15. Rotherhithe 16. Brixton 17. Wandsworth 18. Hammersmith 19. Clapham 20. Mile End

B. Gladstonian.

Total 20

CLASS VII. UNCONTESTED SEATS.

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* In this class, (a) means contested in 1892 and won by less than 100 per cent.; (b) contested in 1892 and won by more than 100 per cent., (c) uncontested at either election.

TABLE G.-PART II. Majorities of 1895 by Groups of Percentage-Contd.

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(a) 15. Taunton

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A. Unionist-Contd. A. Unionist-Contd. A. Unionist-Contd. B. Gladstonian

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22. Aylesbury

23. Wycombe 24. Hitchin 25. Hertford 26. St. Albans 27. Watford

28. Enfield

29. Harrow

30. Brentford 31. N. Northants 32. Chelmsford 33. Epping 34. Sudbury 35. Sevenoaks 36. Tonbridge 37. Medway 38. Ashford 39. Thanet 40. Horsham 41. Rye

42. Chichester 43. Reigate 44. Epsom 45. Guildford 46. Wokingham 47. Basingstoke 48. Petersfield 49. Fareham

50. New Forest

51. S. Dorset

52. N. Dorset

53. W. Dorset

54. Honiton

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DISCUSSION on MR. BAINES'S PAPER.

THE CHAIRMAN (The RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART., M.P.) said that he was sure that all present would join in thanking Mr. Baines for his elaborate and comprehensive paper, which must have cost him an immense amount of labour and thought. Dealing with the remarks towards the close of the paper, he (the Chairman) was not aware that he had ever said that uncontested elections were not important. What he said was that it was very difficult to reduce them to figures, because there were so many elements of doubt. The author stated that, in the opinion of many of those who advocated proportional representation, "the system of party government must disappear when the rights of minorities came to be recognised;" but, though this might be the opinion of some writers on the continent, it was not the opinion of the advocates of reform in this country. The figures of the last election were very instructive. In the non-contested seats the Unionist party had a majority of 75 seats; in the 480 contested seats the Gladstonians polled 20,000 votes more than the Unionists, but the Unionists had a majority of 77 seats. According to the votes given the Gladstonians were entitled to a majority of 2 of the contested seats, which would have reduced the Unionist majority to 73. This clearly showed how little the system of single member seats gave expression to the views of the electors. Again, at the last election of the London County Council the Moderates had a majority of some 12,000 votes, but the result was that the two parties were exactly even as far as the elected members went. At the previous election, however, the Progressives, with exactly the same majority of votes, had in this case a majority of 50 out of 124 elected members. It was clear therefore that the result of an election did not depend, under the present system of voting, upon the number of votes, but upon the way in which the votes happened to lie. If the two parties were evenly distributed, the majority (even if small) secured the whole representation; on the other hand, if the majority were too much concentrated, the minority might secure more of the representation. This at any time might lead to serious results, and they did not want to have the experience of the Swiss in the canton of Ticino, where such a state of things had finally caused a revolution. A system of proportional representation was then introduced which worked very well, and had rapidly extended to Geneva, Neufchatel, Basle, and other cantons. In Belgium also, to which country Mr. Baines had referred, proportional representation had been adopted, and was found to be working well. Proportional representation had other advantages, and was the only way of securing the two great requisites of representative governinent-power to the majority and a fair hearing for the minority.

Mr. Baines

Mr. JOHN B. MARTIN said that the papers on electoral statistics which he had on previous occasions laid before the Society renderedi him liable to be called on to open the debate. Unfortunately he had not prepared himself beforehand with any elaborate criticism of the paper which Mr. Baines had read. Knowing, as he did. the difficulty of obtaining any two sets of electoral figures which harmonised with each other, he appreciated the amount of work which Mr. Baines had thrown into his paper. It was gratifying to find that Mr. Baines looked upon him as an accurate political prophet, in spite of such small omissions as were implied by his omission to take account of the members of the House of Peers when making necessary deductions from the total adult population eligible to vote. Mr. Baines himself confessed to a similar omission ir having taken no account of the constituencies which returned to parliament members representing the Universities. He would not offer any detailed criticism of the paper, or investigate the theory that the higher average degree of intelligence in the population north of the Trent entitled it, man for man, to a larger representation than should be attributed to the southern counties. had suggested that when the female franchise was granted it would be proper for him to write a further statistical paper on the subject, but he would be inclined himself to leave this task, when occasion for it arose, in the more competent hands of Mr. Baines. He might be travelling beyond the sphere of strict statistics, but as the Society had been founded for the purpose of collecting facts illustrating the condition and prospects of society in its material, social, and moral relations, in accordance with the principles of the numerical method, he ventured to submit that the real question for consideration was-What progress the nation was making under successive readjustments of the franchise. Attention had been drawn to the vast number of voters enfranchised in 1884 under the "Representation of the People Act." But had this largely increased electorate shown itself capable of more intelligent legislation? Had the social position of the nation as a whole advanced? Had they improved the standard of minimum comfort or intelligence all round? This offered a wide field for inquiry. He did not despair of seeing these very important and difficult problems grappled with, not in one paper, but from various directions, by the arithmetical method. To ascertain whether the nation had advanced in material and moral prosperity, and whether it was exercising more intelligently the franchise committed to it, appeared to him to be really the object of papers such as the one to which they had just listened with so much interest.

Mr. H. KIMBER, M.P., said that proportional representation was not yet well understood. Cases happened repeatedly in which a large number of the votes recorded were absolutely wasted, the voters being represented by a man of contrary opinions. Consequently their views were represented only by the mere chance of some other constituency electing a man of the same opinions as themselves a haphazard method of representation. He would recommend a study of the plan which had been so admirably

worked out by Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Leonard Courtney, by which a large part of the 43 per cent. of electors who, under the present system, were not represented in their own constituencies or anywhere else indeed by their own votes, or otherwise than by the haphazard method referred to, would at least have the satisfaction of their votes going towards the election of somebody who would represent their opinions. It would be easy to try this experimentally, and he hoped that some day the House of Commons would study and carry out this or some other plan to give representation to minorities. But there was a still greater danger to be faced. The constituencies of this country were supposed to be represented in proportion to the number of intelligent citizens called Electors in those constituencies. But what did they find? That in some parts of the country 20,000 of these qualified citizens returned one man, and 20,000 in other parts returned six or seven men. It is true that, in the election of 1884, after the last Representation of the People Bill, the figure of error had been reduced to 8 to 1; that is to say, that the constituency having the lowest ramber of electors was towards the constituency having the largest number in the proportion of 1 to 8. But that figure of error was constantly on the increase; it was 8 to 1 in 1884, but it had grown to 10 to 1 in 1892, and in the last election, 1895, it was 12 to 1. They were thus repeatedly liable to have a minority of electors representing a majority of electors, which was certainly not representing the will of the people. He hoped, early in the ensuing session, to bring this matter again before the House of Commons, when he trusted that the result would be a good Representation of the People Bill, by which the people of the country would be enabled to have their true opinion represented.

Mr. JESSE ARGYLE was sorry that the reader of the paper had not been able to include the other parts of the kingdom in his figures, as the picture of the present political constitution of the country would have been more complete if Scotland, Ireland, and Wales had been taken in. While noting with interest the fact so clearly brought out by Mr. Baines, that the portion of the electorate to the total eligible male population had largely increased of late years, he thought it was not quite accurate to say that the proportion was now 670 in 1,000. That result had probably been arrived at merely by counting the population as against the number of people upon the register, but the plural vote must not be forgotten, as it was a very considerable one, many individuals having several votes in different parts of the country. The small proportion of voters as compared with the population in London was due to the migratory character of the London people; in some of the East End constituencies more than one-third of the heads of families moved every year, and so, owing to our complicated registration system, were seldom able to obtain a vote. The point as to representation and population going together, depended upon whether representation should be based on the population or on the houses and land which the people lived on at a particular time. If it was to be on the houses and land, the argument to which they

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