Proportional Representation and the Winnipeg Election

French in the Schools of Ontario

Proportional Representation and the Winnipeg Election written by Ernest Thomas

Drawings

From The Canadian Forum, December 1920, p.72

There has grown up in the popular mind a doctrine of the absolute right of a majority to rule. Mr. Balfour during the South African war told Mr. Lloyd George that he must take the consequences if he withstood the popular will. In other words minorities are disfranchised. But the truth is that security for the minority is of the essence of political freedom.

Recently another question has emerged. Representation of economic groups in the legislature has been declared to be un-British simply because it is unfamiliar. On the contrary it must be held that British parliamentary history starts with and proceeds by class representation.

Originally the Great Council, technically, at least, included those who sware direct allegiance to the king, but it soon proved too unwieldy, Selection became inevitable. The greater barons were still summoned personally to the King's Council, afterwards forming the House of Lords, and the remainder were left out. Exigencies of taxation, however, required the aid of the other classes, and so steps were taken to secure their "re-presentation". Writs were issued calling on county officers to "cause to come" certain knights of the shire "with the power of the community". Primarily they were summoned to represent freemen, but in fact they represented an economic group. Thus the smaller land owners were given representation as such. Similarly town authorities were called on to "cause to come" certain burgesses who would represent the commercial classes. Thus one class was left with its entire membership in the legislature while other classes were one by one vested with the right of being represented by selected persons by whose acts the community would be bound.

Two limitations developed. The one was the taking of legislative power from the bulk of the citizens, and this limitation is being overcome by the grant of Direct Legislation in the Initiative and the Referendum. The other was that with the growth of new conditions the legislature came to represent only certain classes of freemen while others were ignored. Recently a widening gulf has appeared between government and populace; and it is essential that every class of the people shall be assured that its interest and viewpoint is present, even if by re-presentation, in the legislature.

The members then, at first, were selected by county or town authority or other selected persons. Quite conceivably this might provide members who were more truly representative of the community than the selection made more or less secretly by the inner circle of the modern party caucus. But in 1832 Mr Disraeli warned the nation that it was about to exchange "representation without election for election without representation." Nineteenth century political history has partly verified this prediction, and the time has come to secure that the legislature as a whole shall represent the community as a whole by providing that due weight is given to each important class of the people. Either there must be adequate class representation or there will be class feud.

To meet this need political thinkers have been advocating for more than forty years the adoption of a different scheme of election. Prior to Gladstone's last Franchise Act minorities were specially assured of representation. One member resigned from the cabinet when this was abolished. Since that time the most serious men on both sides of British politics have accepted the principle and lately it was made the central feature of the agreed programme of the Speaker's Conference. Owing to the urgent need of a strong party majority at the last election Mr. Lloyd George repudiated this element of the agreement and despite the repeated protests of the Peers he induced a majority of the Commons to forego the arrangement. Proportional Representation is much more than a fad, and it may fairly claim that support is given to it just in proportion to the disinterested attention paid to the proposal.

Instead of describing the scheme in the abstract one may find a perfect example of its working in the recent election by the Winnipeg district of ten members of the legislature. The central feature of Proportional Representation is the abolition of one member constituencies, and the organization of electors into larger groups which will elect not less than five members, who are chosen by a process which ensures that the elected members will exactly represent the proportional strength of the various parties. This is secured by giving each elector one vote with the right to declare for whom it is to be counted in case his first preference has enough other votes to elect him. The result is that it is impossible for any considerable group to be without some member elected by its votes. No elector can say that he has "lost his vote" unless he belongs to a very small group and refuses to express a second choice.

In the case of Winnipeg the area was large enough to be assigned ten members. Liberals, Conservatives and Labor each placed ten candidates in the field. In addition there were eleven other candidates who, as the result proved, represented not many people beside their own friends. But the second choice of those who supported these candidates might be as influential as if the independent candidates had been [p.73] left off the ballot paper. The elector in each case marks his ballot by writing the figure 1 against the name of his first choice, 2 against the name of the person whom he would prefer if his first choice should be already elected, 3 for his third choice, and so on. The elector has no difficulty in voting. Indeed he is saved from many a dilemma which now confronts him.

But it is otherwise with the counting. This requires the aid of men who know the rules of the count, which however are simple and explicit. The first thing to do is to see that all the voting papers are thoroughly mixed so that a thousand papers picked from one part of the pile will be similar to a thousand from another part. The next thing is to count the ballots and record them according to the first choice marked on each. This count reveals the total number of ballots to be registered after deducting spoiled papers, and in Winnipeg the spoiled papers were but 1.7% of the whole. It also indicates the number of votes which are entitled to be represented by a member. Obviously this number will be the lowest number which could not be given to more than ten candidates. The total votes cast was 47,427. If this be divided by 11 it yields the quotient 4,311. If we add 1 to this we have a number which cannot be repeated eleven times in the total. Thus it was settled that any person receiving 4,312 votes should be declared elected. In reality this is precisely what we do now. If one person is to be elected we divide the total by 2 — the next highest number to 1 — and add 1 to the quotient.

On the first count it was found that Mr. F. J. Dixon had received over 11,000 votes, and the attorney general also had 58 votes above the 4,312. This was most interesting for, shortly before this, Mr. Dixon had been prosecuted for sedition; and it was interesting to note what was the real belief of the citizens of Winnipeg. As a matter of fact over eighty per cent of the total electors placed his name on their ballots in one place or another. And so the first count registered only two elections. But it revealed what the ultimate result would be. Since labor had 42.5 of the total votes cast it was certain that Labor would have not less than four members. The uncertain element lay in the personal choices. But already one fact stood clear. The body of organized opposition to organized labor which had called itself the "Citizens Committee" stood exposed as representing by no means the citizens as a whole, but at most a bare majority of them.

The count thus established that Mr. Dixon had received 7,000 votes more than was necessary, and therefore this surplus was distributed according to the indicated second choices. As one would expect this number when added to those recorded as a first choice for William Ivens elected him and still left a huge surplus to be distributed again. But neither this surplus nor the small one of the Attorney General was sufficiently great for any one candidate to elect him. Therefore the next stage was to eliminate from the bottom those candidates for whom there remained no possibility of election. However, their supporters did not lose their vote, for these ballots were distributed according to the recorded second choices.

So the counting proceeded, distributing surpluses from the elected, and distributing the second votes of the hopelessly defeated until four more had been elected. This left three still to be chosen, and at last the counters found themselves with but five candidates in the field. The lower names on the list were close enough, for only fifty votes separated Mr. Tupper of the distinguished Conservative family from Mr. R. B. Russell the distinguished strike leader now in prison. The element of uncertainty lay in the way the supporters of the independent candidates would bestow their second choices; but at length this was established and after nearly forty counts Mr. Tupper took third place and Mr. Russell was eliminated. Thus as the first count indicated there were four labor members, four for the liberals, and two conservatives. Even the fraction indicated by that 42.5 percentage was represented in the uncertainty to the end as to whether the last choice would be a second conservative or a fifth labor man.

Now it is clear that this method defends the independence of the elected member. The party caucus has no terror for him for he has simply to retain the confidence of forty-three hundred voters and his position is sure. The turn over at a general election will not give us landslides which represent no corresponding change in the popular mind, but will be exactly in proportion to the actual change in the relative strength of different groups. This secures continuity with elasticity. The best method of securing representation of all classes is just this plan of Proportional Representation. Democracy depends not on making one opinion as weighty as another but on the provision of means by which the manifold thought of the community can find group expression, reached by intimate inter-action of all elements. The present effort to prevent certain elements being heard could if successful only result in explosion and in the death of democracy. A democratic decision is not found in that voice which howls down a smaller number but in that voice which expresses the result of a co-operative effort at community thinking. Because Proportional Representation provides a method by which all groups and classes may as such enter into the political fellowship of the nation, and because by so doing we may eliminate the present policy of rendering voiceless minorities of opinion, the adoption of this plan appears to be the way of safety and conservative loyalty to the constitution.

Ernest Thomas.