for me was the only participator in the debate who, in the vulgar and
reprehensible phrase, "threw a dead cat," or, in polite terms, displayed
classical learning. My member said, "_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_,"
with a rather graceful compliment to the Labour Conference at
Nottingham. "I could not help thinking to myself," said my member, "that
at that conference there must have been many men of sufficient classical
reading to say to themselves, '_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_.'" In
which surmise he was quite right. Except perhaps for "_Tempus fugit,"_
"_verbum sap._," "_Arma virumque_," and "_Quis custodiet_," there is no
better known relic of antiquity. But my member went a little beyond my
ideas when he said: "We are asked to enter upon a method of legislation
which can bear no other description than that of law-making in the
dark," because I think it can bear quite a lot of other descriptions.
This was, however, the artistic prelude to a large, vague, gloomy
dissertation about nothing very definite, a muddling up of the main
question with the minor issue of a schedule of constituencies involved
in the proposal.

The other parts of my member's speech do not, I confess, fill me with
the easy confidence I would like to feel in my proxy. Let me extract a
few gems of eloquence from the speech of this voice which speaks for me,
and give also the only argument he advanced that needs consideration.
"History repeats itself," he said, "very often in curious ways as to
facts, but generally with very different results." That, honestly, I
like. It is a sentence one can read over several times. But he went on
to talk of the entirely different scheme for minority representation,
which was introduced into the Reform Bill of 1867, and there I am
obliged to part company with him. That was a silly scheme for giving two
votes to each voter in a three-member constituency. It has about as much
resemblance to the method of scientific voting under discussion as a