leader of electoral reform in Australia
author of several books especially on Proportional Representation
novel Hobart's Will
1861 A Plea for Pure Democracy (see my blog that is reproduction of this work)
1898
Catherine Helen Spence. Effective Voting: Australia's Opportunity. An Explanation of the Hare System of Representation. Adelaide: Shawyer and Co., 1898, pp. 1-28, ^vo.)
The time occupied in the scrutiny at the election in Hobart in 1897 (p. 13).
Analysis of the voting (as in #3,Piesse''s Bibliography*), and remarks (pp. 19-22). (#5, of Piesse's Bibliography)
#3 Piesse's Bibliography: R.M. Johnston (Government Statistician, Tasmania). Observations on the Working Results of the Hare System of Election in Tasmania. {In Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1897, pp. 69-96 and two diagrams. Also issued as a pamphlet by Government Printer, Hobart, 1897, pp. 1-32 (iiichiding title and analysis) and two diagrams,
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Shortly after Hare's publication of his STV plan, Catherine Helen Spence in far-away Australia read of his work and supported the adopton of Hare's plan for the Australian legislatures. Already by then she had seen the use of form of quota-based transferable voting used in a city election in Tasmania. Her father, the city clerk of Hobarts??, had pariticipated in a early form of PR brought to the Island by an early fan of PR, Governor-General ?????. She would become the most valiant electoral reformer of Australia,
She wholeheartedly pushed for Hare PR in a pamphlet she wrote in 1861. (Later she introduced an innovation that is now used in most applications of STV.)
As she wrote later,
"This pamphlet was written when South Australia had 36 Members of Assembly and 18 of the Legislative Council, and I thought that Hare's great scheme might be carried out here in its entirety...."
MR. HARE'S REFORM BILL APPLIED TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA. BY C. H. S. [Catherine Helen Spence] ADELAIDE : PUBLISHED BY W.C. RIGBY, HINDLEY STREET; AND GEORGE ROBERTSON, MELBOURNE 1861
"THE PURE IDEA OF DEMOCRACY IS THE GOVERNMENT
OF THE WHOLE PEOPLE BY THE WHOLE PEOPLE EQUALLY REPRESENTED."
JOHN STUART MILL
6. To what purpose, it may be said, to return eight members to a House composed of thirty-six ? To be outvoted, of course. Certainly to be out-voted, but not to be silenced - and there is an immense difference there. They would be ready to take advantage of any change in public opinion, to investigate the proceedings of the majority, to point out their blunders, and modify their extreme measures - this is all we claim for minorities. The majority out of doors will always be the majority in doors. Majorities will actually rule under the equal representation system till the end of time, but that they will rule more wisely and more justly is indisputable...."
(see
https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/catherine-helen-spence-a-plea-for-pure-democracy-1861
and
Spence wrote in 1880 that she recognized that the Hare system needed an innovation - multi-member districts.
Under "the Hare-Spence system" it was proposed to "divide the province into districts returning from six to ten members, which will give sufficient local interest but which will almost entirely stop log-rolling - that is, the buying the support of the two members of the district by concessions to local demands."
Spence introduced multi-member districts that while having multiple members, provided local representation.
Multi-member districts were actually used widely in early Canadian history.
for more info see my four-part blog on that subject.
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