of its most
popular leaders; and we shall now have to consider also how these
requirements are modified by practical considerations.

+Proportional Representation to the Two Parties, the Majority and the
Minority.+--It will be as well to illustrate the method proposed by
reference to the conditions imposed by an actual election, such as that
for the Federal Senate. The Commonwealth Bill provides that each State
shall be polled as a single electorate, returning six senators. Suppose
that 120,000 electors vote on party lines in any State. It is clear that
a party which has the support of 20,000 electors is entitled to one
senator; also, that a party which has the support of 40,000 electors is
entitled to two senators; of 60,000 electors to three senators, and so
on. Now, suppose that one party has the support of 50,000 electors, and
the other of 70,000 electors, then the minority is entitled to two and a
half senators, and the majority to three and a half senators. But
senators are living units, and cannot be divided into fractions. The
question therefore arises, Which is entitled to the odd senator, the
majority or the minority? And the answer is that they are both equally
entitled to him; for it is as much a tie as if each party has the
support of 10,000 electors in a single-seat electorate. But if the
minority had the support of 49,999 electors, or one elector less, it
would be entitled to only two senators, and if it had the support of
50,001 electors, or one elector more, it would be entitled to three
senators.

From the above simple facts can be deduced general rules applicable to
any particular case. It is evident that the result is not affected by
the number of votes allowed to each elector, providing only that each
elector has the same number of votes. It is also quite irrespective of
the number of candidates nominated in the interests of each party. But
it would never do to allow party organizations to control nominations.
How are we to combine individual candidature with party nomination? The
only way to do this is to require that each candidate shall declare,
either when nominating or a few days before the election, on which side
of the House he intends to sit, and be classified accordingly as
Ministerialist or Oppositionist. To decide the relative strengths of the
two parties, it is then only necessary to take the aggregate votes
polled by all the candidates nominated for each party as a measure of
the amou