Ashworth and Ashworth PR Applied to Party Government (1900) much on early STV, excerpts and highlights

Proportional Representation Applied to Party Government (1900)

Authors:

T.R. ASHWORTH (president of the Victorian Division, Australian Free Trade and Liberal Association)

H.P.C. ASHWORTH (civil engineer)

online on Internet Archives:

https://archive.org/details/proportionalrep00ashwgoog

We are now threatened with the adoption of the Block Vote for the Federal Senate, and in some of the States for the House of Representatives as well; and it is in the hope of preventing this wrong that the present book is written.

states

p. 139

every apportionment act involves more or less of the gerrymander. The gerrymander is simply such a thoughtful construction of districts as will economize the votes of the party in power by giving it small majorities in a large number of districts, and coop up the opposing party with overwhelming majorities in a large number of districts.

the so-called cracking and packing

With enlarged or grouped electorates the periodical revision of boundaries would be entirely obviated, because the size of the electorate may be kept constant, and the number of representatives varied. Under such a system all unfairness would disappear, and the gerrymander would be impossible. Representation would automatically follow the movements of population.

p. 29-
Miss Spence. — An active campaign has for some time 
been carried on for the adoption of the Hare system 
in Australia. Miss C. H. Spence, of South Australia, 
was the pioneer reformer, and has laboured in the 
cause by pen and voice for no less than forty years. 
Great credit is undoubtedly due to Miss Spence for the 
clear and simple manner in which she has expounded 
the system, and for the good work she has done in 
exposing the defects of the present methods. Not only 
has she lectured in all parts of Australia, but she has 
made visits to England, where she met Mr. Hare 
and Sir John Lubbock, and also to America. But we 
may admire Miss Spence's courage and devotion to 
principle without agreeing with her conclusions. 

At a meeting held at River House, Chelsea, London, 
in 1894, Miss Spence submitted an analysis of 3,824 
votes recorded at 50 public meetings in South Aus- 
tralia. The audiences were in each case asked to 
select six representatives out of twelve candidates. 
The result of a scrutiny of all the votes combined was 
that the following six " parties " secured one " repre- 
sentative" each — viz., Capital, Labour, Single Tax, 



n. REPRESENTATIVE PRINCIPLE. 31 

Irish Catholic, Prohibition, and Women's Suffrage. 
Miss Spence frankly confesses that these " parties " 
are minorities, but holds that a majority can be formed 
by the union of minorities, and that party responsible 
government can still be carried on. Now, can any 
sensible man or woman imagine a working ministry 
formed by a union of any four of these "parties?" 
Capital would certainly be permanently opposed to 
Labour and to Single Tax, and as for the others, there 
is not a single principle in common. How, then, could 
a union be formed ? The only possible way is by log- 
rolling; they must make a bargain to support one 
another's demands. Such a union could not possibly 
be stable, because the minority is free to offer a better 
bargain to any one of the " parties " to induce it to 
desert. Again, it may be called the rule of the 
majority, but what sort of a majority ? Is it not 
plainly the rule of a majority in the interests of 
minorities ? That is very different to the rule of the 
majority in the interests of all, which free government 
demands. The simple truth is that the " parties " are 
factions, and that the "representatives" are mere 
delegates of those factions. 

But in practice the case would be far worse than we have assumed. There is not the slightest guarantee that the same six factions would be elected in each six-seat electorate. We might have an 
unlimited number of delegates of various religions, 
classes, races, localities, and political organizations on all kinds of single questions. An assembly formed on these lines could hardly be dignified with the name of a representative assembly.

p. 181, p. 187

Block Voting examined

says found to be inequitable, so Congress outlawed it for election of elected members in 1842 (obviously allowing it to be kept it for the Electoral College)

Limited Vote p. 183-

Britain elects three and each voter has two votes

New York for delegates for a constitutional convention 32 to be elected as one contest, each voter had 16 votes, each party took 16 seats (Republicans could have taken 20 if nominated 20, if voter had been organized perhaps by throwing all 20 names in hat and drawing out four to not be voted for.

Other delegates elected through FPTP and Republicans took 81 and Democrats took 47.

Boston elects 12 aldermen and each voter has 7 votes.

election of the candidate most in general favour

We do not refer to the perplexity so important to some of giving effect to the actual degree of favour for various candidates.

p. 188

The Double Election [what we know as the "Two Round System"]

The true principles of political representation require, not the election of the candidate most in general favour with both parties, but the election by each party separately of its own most favoured candidates. But as it is impossible for both parties to be represented in a single-membered electorate, the best alternative is that both should contest the seat and one be represented.

The present system of election has largely tended to realize this alternative,

"Advanced Vote" p. 188

ranked voting used for TRS

p. 192 The Exhaustive Ballot.—

A bill has just been introduced into the Legislative Assembly of Victoria providing for a further extension of the principle of the Advance Vote. The plan is favoured by Professor Nanson, and professes to be an improvement on the Queensland plan, although it is only an "instalment of reform" in view of the ultimate adoption of the more perfect Preferential Voting. The Queensland plan is objected to because all but the two highest candidates are thrown out.

...

The conclusion that must be reached from all these considerations is that, except when there is a single candidate standing in the interests of each of the two main parties, it is impossible to say with the present system who ought to be elected. The difficulty is one of fundamental principle. The only way to do justice to both parties is to enlarge the electorates so that each can get its proportionate share of representation, and then to provide such machinery as will allow each party separately to elect its most favoured candidates. In no other way can the people be induced to organize into two coherent parties. (p. 189)