There is, I know, a disposition in some quarters to minimise the importance of Proportional Representation, as though it were a mere readjustment of voting methods.  It is nothing of the sort; it is a prospective revolution.  It will revolutionise government far more than a mere change from kingdom to republic or vice versa could possibly do; it will give a new and unprecedented sort of government to the world.  The real leaders of the country will govern the country.  For Great Britain, for example, instead of the secret, dubious and dubitable Cabinet, which is the real British government of to-day, poised on an unwieldy and crowded House of Commons, we should have open government by the representatives of, let us say, twenty great provinces, Ulster, Wales, London, for example, each returning from twelve to thirty members.  It would be a steadier, stabler, more confident, and more trusted government than the world has ever seen before.  Ministers, indeed, and even ministries might come and go, but that would not matter, as it does now, because there would be endless alternatives through which the assembly could express itself instead of the choice between two parties.

The arguments against Proportional Representation that have been advanced hitherto are trivial in comparison with its enormous advantages.  Implicit in them all is the supposition that public opinion is at bottom a foolish thing, and that electoral methods are to pacify rather than express a people.  It is possibly true that notorious windbags, conspicuously advertised adventurers, and the heroes of temporary sensations may run a considerable chance upon the lists.  My own estimate of the popular wisdom is against the idea that any vividly prominent figure must needs get in; I think the public is capable of appreciating, let us say, the charm and interest of Mr. Sandow or Mr. Jack Johnson or Mr. Harry Lauder or Mr. Evan Roberts without wanting to send these gentlemen into Parliament.  And I think that the increased power that the Press would have through its facilities in making reputations may also be exaggerated.  Reputations are mysterious things and not so easily forced, and even if it were possible for a section of the Press to limelight a dozen or so figures up to the legislature, they would still have, I think, to be interesting, sympathetic and individualised figures; and at the end they would be only half a dozen among four hundred men of a repute more naturally achieved.  A third objection is that this reform would give us group politics and unstable government.  It might very possibly give us unstable ministries, but unstable ministries may mean stable government, and such stable ministries as that which governs England at the present time may, by clinging obstinately to office, mean the wildest fluctuations of policy.  Mr. Ramsay Macdonald has drawn a picture of the too-representative Parliament of Proportional Representation, split up into groups each pledged