it! A straight fight! For more than a quarter-century I have been a
voter, usually with votes in two or three constituencies, and never in
all that long political life have I seen a single straight fight in an
election, but only the dismallest sham fights it is possible to
conceive. Thrice only in all that time have I cast a vote for a man whom
I respected. On all other occasions the election that mocked my
citizenship was either an arranged walk-over for one party or the other,
or I had a choice between two unknown persons, mysteriously selected as
candidates by obscure busy people with local interests in the
constituency. Every intelligent person knows that this is the usual
experience of a free and independent voter in England. The "fight" of an
ordinary Parliamentary election in England is about as "straight" as the
business of a thimble rigger.

And consider just what these "complications" are of which the opponents
of Proportional Representation chant so loudly. In the sham election of
to-day, which the politicians claim gives them a mandate to muddle up
our affairs, the voter puts a x against the name of the least detestable
of the two candidates that are thrust upon him. Under the Proportional
Representation method there will be a larger constituency, a larger list
of candidates, and a larger number of people to be elected, and he will
put I against the name of the man he most wants to be elected, 2 against
his second choice, and if he likes he may indulge in marking a third, or
even a further choice. He may, if he thinks fit, number off the whole
list of candidates. That is all he will have to do. That is the
stupendous intricacy of the method that flattens out the minds of Lord
Harcourt and Sir Thomas Whittaker. And as for the working of it, if you
must go into that, all that happens is that if your first choice gets
more votes than he needs for his return, he takes only the fraction of
your vote that he requires, and the rest of the vote goes on to your