My long comradeship with Mrs. A. H. Young began before the close of the year.  A disfranchised voter at her first election, she was driven farther afield than the present inadequate system of voting to look for a just electoral method.  She found it in effective voting, and from that time devoted herself to the cause.  Early in 1897 Mrs. Young was appointed the first honorary secretary of the league.  January of the same year found us stirred to action by the success of Sir Edward Braddon’s first Bill for proportional representation in Tasmania.  Though limited in its application to the two chief cities of the island State, the experiment was wholly successful.  We had our first large public meeting in the Co-operative Hall in January, and carried a resolution protesting against the use of the block vote for the Federal Convention elections.  A deputation to the acting Premier (Mr.—­afterwards Sir Frederick—­Holder) was arranged for the next morning.  But we were disappointed in the result of our mission, for Mr. Holder pointed out that the Enabling Act distinctly provided for every elector having 10 votes, and effective voting meant a single transferable vote.  I had written and telegraphed to the Hon. C. C. Kingston when the Enabling Act was being drafted to beg him to consider effective voting as the basis of election; but he did not see it then, nor did he ever see it.  In spite, however, of the short sightedness of party leaders, events began to move quickly.

Our disappointment over the maintenance of the block vote for the election of 10 delegates to the Federal Convention led to my brother John’s suggestion that I should become a candidate.  Startling as the suggestion was, so many of my friends supported it that I agreed to do so.  I maintained that the fundamental necessity of a democratic Constitution such as we hoped would evolve from the combined efforts of the ablest men in the Australian States was a just system of representation and it was as the advocate of effective voting that I took my stand.  My personal observation in the United States and Canada had impressed me with the dangers inseparable from the election of Federal Legislatures by local majorities—­sometimes by minorities—­where money and influence could be employed, particularly where a line in a tariff spelt a fortune to a section of the people, in the manipulation of the floating vote.  Parties may boast of their voting strength and their compactness, but their voting strength under the present system of voting is only as strong as its weakest link, discordant or discontented minorities, will permit it to be.  The stronger a party is in the Legislature the more is expected from it by every little section of voters to whom it owes its victory at the polls.  The impelling force of responsibility which makes all Governments “go slow” creates the greatest discontent among impatient followers of the rank and file, and where a few votes may turn the scale at any general election a Government is often compelled to choose between yielding to the demands of its more clamorous followers at the expense of the general taxpayer or submitting to a Ministerial defeat.