Proportional Representation | Page 9

Houses of
Parliament, whether the upper House is reformed or not, is not the only
question which is giving rise to a closer examination of the foundations
of the House of Commons. To this external difficulty there must be
added the internal, and in the future a more pressing, problem created
by the rise of a new organized party within the House of Commons
itself. The successive extensions of the franchise have given birth to
new political forces which are not content to give expression to their
views along the old channels of the two historic parties, and the growth
of the Labour Party must accelerate the demand for a more satisfactory
electoral method. For a system which fails in many respects to meet the
requirements of two political parties cannot possibly do justice to the
claims of three parties to fair representation in the House of Commons.
It is true that some statesmen regard the rise of a new party with fear
and trembling; they imagine that it forebodes the bankruptcy of
democratic institutions, the success of which, in their judgment, is
necessarily bound up with the maintenance of the two-party system.
The two-party system must indeed be a plant of tender growth if it
depends for existence upon the maintenance of antiquated electoral
methods. But those politicians who deprecate any change on the ground
that single-member constituencies afford the only means by which the
two-party system can be preserved, have failed to explain why this
electoral system has not prevented the growth of Labour parties in
Australia and in England, or why numerous parties and single-member
constituencies go hand in hand both in France and Germany.
Single-member constituencies may distort and falsify the representation
of parties, but they cannot prevent the coming of a new party if that
party is the outcome, the expression, of a new political force.
_The new political conditions and electoral reform._
Why should the rise of a new party cause so much uneasiness? Can

democracy make no use of that increased diffusion of political
intelligence from which springs these new political movements? Mr.
Asquith takes no such pessimistic view. He, least, realises that our
present system is not necessarily the final stage in the development of
representative government. He does not imagine that, whilst we
welcome progress in all things else, we must at all costs adhere to the
electoral methods which have done duty in the past. Speaking at St.
Andrews, 19 February 1906, he declared that: "It was infinitely to the
advantage of the House of Commons, if it was to be a real reflection
and mirror of the national mind, that there should be no strain of
opinion honestly entertained by any substantial body of the King's
subjects which should not find there representation and speech. No
student of political development could have supposed that we should
always go along in the same old groove, one party on one side and
another party on the other side, without the intermediate ground being
occupied, as it was in every other civilized country, by groups and
factions having special ideas and interests of their own. If real and
genuine and intelligent opinion was more split up than it used to be,
and if we could not now classify everybody by the same simple process,
we must accept the new conditions and adapt our machinery to them,
our party organization, our representative system, and the whole
scheme and form of our government." This is not a chance saying,
standing by itself, for a fortnight later, speaking at Morley, Mr. Asquith
added: "Let them have a House of Commons which fully reflected
every strain of opinion; that was what made democratic government in
the long run not only safer and more free, but more stable." Mr.
Asquith's statements take cognizance of the fact that a great divergence
between the theoretical and actual composition of the House of
Commons must make for instability, and his pronouncement is an
emphatic reinforcement of the arguments contained in the earlier
portion of this chapter.
On a more important occasion, when replying to an influential
deputation of members of Parliament and others,[10] Mr. Asquith, with
all the responsibility which attaches to the words of a Prime Minister,
made this further statement: "I have said in public before now, and am
therefore only repeating an opinion which I have never ceased to hold,

namely, that there can be no question in the mind of any one familiar
with the actual operation of our constitutional system that it permits,
and I might say that it facilitates--but it certainly permits--a minority of
voters, whether in the country at large or in particular constituencies, to
determine the representation--the relative representation in the one case
of the whole nation, and the actual representation in the other