Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/371

Mr. W. Forster, after explaining what had been proposed by a former ministry, and discussing the general question of the construction of an Upper Chamber, observed that representation of the average opinions of the country was assumed to be arrived at under out present system. But how was it proposed to produce that effect when there was only one electorate returning six or seven members? [Mr. Harpur: By the progress of truth.] hatever faith the hon. member might have in the operation of truth (or perhaps Providence was meant), it was their duty, as legislators, to have in their institutions as little liability to error as possible, to prevent injurious and unjust results. It was a palpable injustice when, in proposing to give the whole country representation, a small majority of a constituency was given the power of returning the whole of the members. That was a result we should endeavour to guard against. He thought a majority of the House would agree with him that this would be unfair, and not a representative in principle at all—only one section was represented, having, it might be, only a majority of three or four, to the entire disfranchisement of the other, at any rate, for a certain period. He thought a result like that which must arise in many instances ought to be guarded against by the institution they were now endeavouring to perfect. He thought he had demonstrated that if the principle of large electorates were admitted, they must alter the system of voting. It was the fear that he and others entertained of this result which led him to make, in the measure his administration introduced, a provision by which an elector was allowed to vote for only one candidate. He admitted that that was an imperfect attempt, and he conceived that Hare's system, so much spoken of in the present debate, went in the same direction, but did the thing aimed at in a far more effective and just manner. They had heard all sorts of denimciations, but not a single argument against that system. Was it a reason that the House should reject this system, which had obtained the attention and approval of thoughtful men, including one honourable member well known to be extreme in his democratic notions, because certain hon. members informed the House that they did not understand it? Or did it follow that because hon. members did not understand it the public would not understand it? It was called a conservative measure. Now, according to his mind, it was one of the most democratic measures ever proposed; it was a complete innovation upon old established principles. It was conservative in the sense in which every reform was conservative, because it seemed to him to conserve justice, being allied with truth and equity, and thus conserving the very best interests for the people. That it was conservative in the sense of obstruction, in the sense of the word “tory”, or the maintenance of obsolete, oligarchical, or anti-democratic notions, he denied; and no one who thoroughly considered its operations could entertain such an opinion for a moment. They were told that it was unpopular—that the people out of doors were against it. But the people out of doors had not considered it; there had been no discussion or expression of opinion on the part of the public to entitle any hon. member to come to that conclu-