and more
practical method of proportional representation than the Hare system.
The distinctive feature is that it applies the proportional principle
not to individual candidates but to parties. But, like the Hare system,
it places no restriction on the number of parties. It is therefore
particularly adapted to the circumstances of the countries on the
Continent of Europe, which, having already a number of strong party
organizations, wish to retain them and to do justice to each.
Accordingly we find that nearly all experiments in proportional
representation to the present time have been confined to those
countries.

Perhaps the very earliest attempt to apply the proportional principle
was that of Mr. Thomas Gilpin, in a pamphlet, "On the Representation of
Minorities of Electors to act with the Majority in Elected Assemblies,"
published at Philadelphia in 1844. He proposed that electorates should
be enlarged, and that each party should nominate a list of candidates
equal to the number required to be elected, and should place them in
order of preference. Each elector could then vote for one of these
lists; and each party would be allotted a number of representatives
proportional to the amount of support it received. The highest on each
list, to the number allotted, would be elected. It will be seen that
this is really a system of double election; for the order of favour of
the candidates of any party would have to be decided before the
nominations were made.

Only two years afterwards M. Victor Considerant published a similar
scheme at Geneva, Switzerland. Each elector was to vote first for a
party and then for any number of candidates on the party list whom he
preferred. The party votes were to decide the number of members allotted
to each list, and the individual votes the successful candidates.

The little republic of Switzerland has been the scene of nearly all
subsequent improvement. In 1867 Professor Ernest Naville founded the
_Association Reformiste_ at Geneva to advocate the principle of
proportional representation. In 1871 the Association adopted the _Liste
Libre_ system, invented by M. Borely, of Nimes, France, in which each
elector was to place all the candidates of his party in order of
preference. But as this allows the electors little direct influence on
their own candidates and none outside of them, a combination of the
cumulative vote and the _Liste Libre_ was adopted in 1875. Each elector
was to have