+Mr. Hare’s Scheme.+—­The “representative principle” was first propounded in England in 1857 by Mr. Thomas Hare.  He proposed that the United Kingdom should be constituted one huge electorate for the return of the 654 members of the House of Commons.  The people were to group themselves into 654 voluntary unanimous sections, each returning one member, and each gathered from every corner of the kingdom.  We propose to consider here not the scheme itself but only the principle on which it was founded.  Mr. Hare rightly conceived that the great evil of the present system is the exclusion of the minority in each electorate, but he altogether failed to appreciate that the excluded minority nearly always represented one of the two main parties.  He could not see, in fact, that to divide each electorate into majority and minority is to divide the whole country into majority and minority, nor that the injustice is tolerated because it is usually as bad for one party as the other.  Instead, therefore, of proposing to do justice to both the majority and the minority in each electorate, he proposed to allow representation to as many minorities as possible.  To him, the rule of the majority was the rule of a majority of interests; this he called the constitutional majority, as opposed to the “mere rule of numbers.”  Now, at the time Mr. Hare wrote party government was rather weak in England.  He quotes with approval a statement of Mr. Sidney Herbert, M.P., that the House was divided into many parties, or rather no party, because the country was divided into many parties or no party, and that the division into two parties would never be restored again.  It is amusing, in view of after events, to find Mr. Hare asking what would be the result of any contrivance to re-establish party.  Assuming that party representation was dead, Mr. Hare proposed to substitute personal representation.  It is positively ludicrous at this interval of time to note how the electors were expected to group themselves.  They were to take personal merit as the basis of representation; every vote cast was to be a spontaneous tribute to the qualities and attainments of the person for whom it was given.  And in order, presumably, that they should choose good men in preference to corrupt men, the polling-day was to be set apart as a sacred holiday, and church services were to be held to solemnize the public act and seek for the Divine blessing!

The maintenance of a responsible ministry in such a House presented no difficulty to Mr. Hare.  The electors were to indicate whom they considered the most illustrious statesmen, and no one would dare to question their decision!