onstituency. And so with most constituencies, and
the result is a legislative body consisting largely of men of unknown
character and obscure aims, whose only credential is the wearing of a
party label. They come into parliament not to forward the great
interests they ostensibly support, but with an eye to the railway
jobbery, corporation business, concessions and financial operations that
necessarily go on in and about the national legislature. That in its
simplest form is the dilemma of democracy. The problem that has
confronted modern democracy since its beginning has not really been the
representation of organized minorities--they are very well able to look
after themselves--but _the protection of the unorganized mass of busily
occupied, fairly intelligent men from the tricks of the specialists who
work the party machines_. We know Mr. Sanity, we want Mr. Sanity, but we
are too busy to watch the incessant intrigues to oust him in favour of
the obscurely influential people, politically docile, who are favoured
by the organization. We want an organizer-proof method of voting. It is
in answer to this demand, as the outcome of a most careful examination
of the ways in which voting may be protected from the exploitation of
those who _work_ elections, that the method of Proportional
Representation with a single transferable vote has been evolved. It is
organizer-proof. It defies the caucus. If you do not like Mr. Goldbug
you can put up and vote for Mr. Sanity, giving Mr. Goldbug your second
choice, in the most perfect confidence that in any case your vote cannot
help to return Mr. Wurstberg.

With Proportional Representation with a single transferable vote (this
specification is necessary, because there are also the inferior
imitations of various election-riggers figuring as proportional
representation), it is _impossible to prevent the effective candidature
of independent men of repute beside the official candidates_.

The method of voting under the Proportional Representation system has
been ignorantly represented as complex. It is really almost ideally
simple. You mark the list of candidates with numbers in the order of
your preference. For example, you believe A to be absolutely the best
man for parliament; you mark him 1. But B you think is the next best
man; you mark him 2. That means that if A gets an enormous amount of
support, ever so many more votes than he requires for his return, your
vote will not be wasted.