The third claim is that electors should have perfect freedom to vote exactly as they please, and yet Professor Nanson, in condemning Mr. Hare’s original scheme, has denied that they are free to vote as faddists; but he still holds that they are free to vote on any basis if only they form one-sixth to one-twelfth of an electorate.  Thus the amount of freedom is variable and a matter of opinion.  Now, we altogether deny that electors should be given the opportunity to subordinate the national interests to factious interests.  Just as the faddist argument is fatal to Mr. Hare’s original scheme, so the splitting up into factions is fatal to Professor Nanson’s present scheme.  Where is the freedom which Professor Nanson claims under the present system of election?  Is it not the fact that throughout England, America, and Australia the electors have very often a choice between two candidates only—­one Ministerialist and one Oppositionist?  By all means let us have as many political organizations as possible to make known the wishes of all sections; but the true function of all such organizations is to influence the policies of the two main parties, and not to secure independent delegates in Parliament.  This means simply that the compromise among the different sections supporting a party must be effected in the electors’ minds, and at the elections, and not on the floor of the Legislature.

The fourth claim is the emancipation of the voters from the tyranny of the “boss.”  Now, the power of the “boss” lies in the control of nominations, and although to some extent this control is necessary with the present system of election, it is not essential to party government, as we hope to show.  But with government by faction there would be no escape from this control.  The tyranny of a faction is worse than the tyranny of the “boss.”  The voters need saving from their own selfish passions far more than from the “boss.”

The final claim that each elector is entitled to the full value of his vote, regardless of the way in which it is used, is really a claim to an equality of political power, i.e., to direct government.  It means that electors are absolutely free to combine for their own interests, or for their interest as a class, in opposition to the public welfare.  These combinations would, with an equality of direct political power, soon bring on social disruption.

+Professor Jethro Brown.+—­In the preface to “The New Democracy,” by Professor Jethro Brown, the two fundamental difficulties of present-day politics are correctly stated to be—­how to express public opinion, and how to improve its value.  For the first of these Professor Brown recommends the Hare system, and for the second the study of history.  Later on he writes:—­“How is the amelioration of popular sovereignty to be effected?  Not, I venture to believe, by the pursuit of the policy which hopes to play off ignorance against ignorance and prejudice against prejudice, and to secure good