lection that mocked my
citizenship was either an arranged walk-over for one party or the other,
or I had a choice between two unknown persons, mysteriously selected as
candidates by obscure busy people with local interests in the
constituency. Every intelligent person knows that this is the usual
experience of a free and independent voter in England. The "fight" of an
ordinary Parliamentary election in England is about as "straight" as the
business of a thimble rigger.

And consider just what these "complications" are of which the opponents
of Proportional Representation chant so loudly. In the sham election of
to-day, which the politicians claim gives them a mandate to muddle up
our affairs, the voter puts a x against the name of the least detestable
of the two candidates that are thrust upon him. Under the Proportional
Representation method there will be a larger constituency, a larger list
of candidates, and a larger number of people to be elected, and he will
put I against the name of the man he most wants to be elected, 2 against
his second choice, and if he likes he may indulge in marking a third, or
even a further choice. He may, if he thinks fit, number off the whole
list of candidates. That is all he will have to do. That is the
stupendous intricacy of the method that flattens out the minds of Lord
Harcourt and Sir Thomas Whittaker. And as for the working of it, if you
must go into that, all that happens is that if your first choice gets
more votes than he needs for his return, he takes only the fraction of
your vote that he requires, and the rest of the vote goes on to your
Number 2. If 2 isn't in need of all of it, the rest goes on to 3. And so
on. That is the profound mathematical mystery, that is the riddle beyond
the wit of Westminster, which overpowers these fine intelligences and
sets them babbling of "senior wranglers." Each time there is a debate on
this question in the House, member after member hostile to the proposal
will play the ignorant fool and pretend to be confused himself, and will
try to confuse others, by deliberately clumsy statements of these most
elementary ideas. Surely if there were no other argument for a change of
type in the House, these poor knitted brows, these public perspirations
of the gentry who "cannot understand P.R.," should suffice.

But let us be just; it is not all pretence; the inability of Mr. Austen
Chamberlain to grasp the simple facts before him was undoubtedly
gen