will find, will return certain favourites, A and B
and C and D let us call them, by enormous majorities,
and behind these at a considerable distance will come
E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and L. Now give your candidates
time to develop organisation. A lot of people
who swelled A’s huge vote will dislike J and
K and L so much, and prefer M and N so much, that if
they are assured that by proper organisation A’s
return can be made certain without their voting for
him, they will vote for M and N. But they will do
so only on that understanding. Similarly certain
B-ites will want O and P if they can be got without
sacrificing B. So that adequate party organisation
in the community may return not the dozen a naive vote
would give, but A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, M, N, O, P.
Now suppose that, instead of this arrangement, your
community is divided into twelve constituencies and
no candidate may contest more than one of them.
And suppose each constituency has strong local preferences.
A, B and C are widely popular; in every constituency
they have supporters but in no constituency does any
one of the three command a majority. They are
great men, not local men. Q, who is an unknown
man in most of the country, has, on the contrary,
a strong sect of followers in the constituency for
which A stands, and beats him by one vote; another
local celebrity, E, disposes of B in the same way;
C is attacked not only by S but T, whose peculiar
views upon vaccination, let us say, appeal to just
enough of C’s supporters to let in S. Similar
accidents happen in the other constituencies, and
the country that would have unreservedly returned
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K and L on the first
system, return instead O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X,
Y, Z. Numerous voters who would have voted for A if
they had a chance vote instead for R, S, T, etc.,
numbers who would have voted for B, vote for Q, V,
W, X, etc. But now suppose that A and B
are opposed to one another, and that there is a strong
A party and a strong B party highly organised in the
country. B is really the second favourite over
the country as a whole, but A is the first favourite.
D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, U, W, Y constitute the A candidates
and in his name they conquer. B, C, E, G, I, K,
M, O, Q, S, V are all thrown out in spite of the wide
popularity of B and C. B and C, we have supposed,
are the second and third favourites, and yet they
go out in favour of Y, of whom nobody has heard before,
some mere hangers-on of A’s. Such a situation
actually occurs in both Ulster and Home-Rule Ireland.
But now let us suppose another arrangement, and that is that the whole country is one constituency, and every voter has, if he chooses to exercise them, twelve votes, which, however, he must give, if he gives them all, to twelve separate people. Then quite certainly A, B, C, D will come in, but the tail will be different. M, N, O, P may come up next to them, and even Z, that eminent non-party man, may get in. But now organisation