education. The fundamental principle of the thing, that a candidate who
gets more votes than he wants is made to hand on a fraction of each vote
to the voter's second choice, and that a candidate whose chances are
hopeless is made to hand on the whole vote to the voter's second choice,
so that practically only a small number of votes are ineffective, is
within the compass of the mind of a boy of ten.

But simple as this method is, it completely kills the organization and
manipulation of voting. It completely solves the Goldbug-Wurstberg-
Sanity problem. It is knave-proof--short of forging, stealing, or
destroying voting papers. A man of repute, a leaderly man, may defy all
the party organizations in existence and stand beside and be returned
over the head of a worthless man, though the latter be smothered with
party labels. That is the gist of this business. The difference in
effect between Proportional Representation and the old method of voting
must ultimately be to change the moral and intellectual quality of
elected persons profoundly. People are only beginning to realize the
huge possibilities of advance inherent in this change of political
method. It means no less than a revolution from "delegate democracy"
to "selective democracy."

Now, I will not pretend to be anything but a strong partizan in this
matter. When I speak of "democracy" I mean "selective democracy." I
believe that "delegate democracy" is already provably a failure in the
world, and that the reason why to-day, after three and a half years of
struggle, we are still fighting German autocracy and fighting with no
certainty of absolute victory, is because the affairs of the three great
Atlantic democracies have been largely in the hands not of selected men
but of delegated men, men of intrigue and the party machine, of dodges
rather than initiatives, second-rate men. When Lord Haldane, defending