the form of a Bill.  When, later, Mr. E. H. Coombe, M.P., took charge of the Bill in the Assembly although the growth in public opinion in favour of effective voting had been surprising, the coalition between the Liberal and Labour parties strengthened their combined position and weakened the allegiance of their elected members to a reform which would probably affect their vested interests in the Legislature.  Mr. Coombe had not been an easy convert to proportional representation.  He had attended my first lecture at Gawler, but saw difficulties in the way of accepting the Hare system as propounded by me.  His experiments were interesting.  Assuming a constituency of 100 electors with 10 members, he filled in 60 Conservative and 40 Liberal voting papers.  The proportion of members to each party should be six Conservatives and four Liberals, and when he found that by no amount of manipulation could this result be altered he became a convert to effective voting.  His able advocacy of the reform is too well known to need further reference; but I should like now to thank those members, including Mr. K. W. Duncan, who have in turn led the crusade for righteous representation in both Houses of Parliament, for of them may it truly be said that the interests of the people as a whole were their first consideration.  Before I left for America I saw the growing power and strength of the Labour Party.  I rejoiced that a new star had arisen in the political firmament.  I looked to it as a party that would support every cause that tended towards righteousness.  I expected it, as a reform party, to take up effective voting, because effective voting was a reform.  I hoped that a party whose motto was “Trust the people” would have adopted a reform by means of which alone it would be possible for the people to gain control over its Legislature and its Government.  Alas! for human hopes that depend on parties for their realization!  As time after time I have seen defections from the ranks of proportionalists, and people have said to me:—­“Give it up, Miss Spence.  Why trouble longer?  Human nature is too bad,” I have answered, “No; these politicians are but the ephemeral creations of a day or a month, or a year; this reform is for all time. and must prevail, and I will never give it up.”

During my many visits to Melbourne and Sydney I had been much impressed with the influence and the power for good of the local branches of the world-famed National Council of Women.  I had long hoped for the establishment of a branch in South Australia, and was delighted to fall in with a suggestion made by the Countess of Aberdeen (Vice-President-at-large of the International Council), through Lady Cockburn, that a council should be formed in South Australia.  The inaugural meeting in September, 1902, was splendidly attended, and it was on a resolution moved by me that the council came into existence.  Lady Way was the first President, and I was one of the Vice-Presidents.