Federal Senate, the bill provides that every State,
except Queensland, must be polled as one electorate for the election of
six senators at the first election and in case of a double dissolution;
at intermediate elections three senators only will be elected, as they
retire in rotation. This equal representation of the States might be
taken to imply that the Senate is intended to represent State rights,
and the provision that each State is to be polled as one electorate
would seem to support that view. On the other hand, the senators are not
required to vote according to States, for it is provided that "each
senator shall have one vote;" the vote of a State may therefore be
neutralized by its representatives. And again, the Senate is to be
elected directly by the people and not by the State legislatures, as at
first proposed. To some extent, therefore, the Federal Senate as now
constituted presents a new problem in representation, on which it is not
advisable to dogmatize. Personal considerations will probably have more
weight than in the selection of representatives; but when we reflect
that it is really little more than a revising assembly, elected by the
same voters as the House of Representatives to deal with the same
questions, and having no special functions of its own, the conclusion
seems irresistible that the election must be contested by the same
national parties, and that the same method of election should be
adopted.

Until the Parliament of the Commonwealth prescribes a uniform method of
choosing senators, the duty is to be left to the State parliaments; and
it is to be regretted that the States have taken no steps to secure
uniform action at the first election. In Victoria a fierce newspaper
contest is being waged over the Block Vote and the Hare system, and the
arguments, being mutually destructive, only go to prove that both are
equally objectionable. The _Age_ naturally wishes to have the privilege
of electing six senators as it did ten delegates to the Federal
Convention, and contends that the majority should elect all the
senators; the _Argus_ rushes to the other extreme in declaring that six
separate minorities ought to be represented, and ignores the risk that
these minorities would be formed on a class or religious basis. The
middle position advocated in this book--namely, that majority and
minority should each return its proportional share of representation--is
free from the objections to both thes