Sir Alfred Hopkinson, Vice-Chancellor of the Manchester University, made a
brilliant and witty speech on proportional representation at a meeting in Manchester on Tuesday. He said that if a democratic Government was not to become a tyrannous Government, if the rights of minorities were to be respected, some such reform was vitally necessary. What in Mill's days was an interesting political speculation had now become a question of immediate practical urgency. The divine right of Kings was perhaps a bad thing in its way, but if it came to the worst we could always cut off the King's head. As for the divine right of the aristocracy, we could deport an aristocracy if necessary. But when we came to the divine right of the odd man to govern wrong, we could never find the odd man. He was enshrined behind a cloud we could not penetrate. "If I had a vote in the community which once grazed quietly in the Gadarene hills," said Sir Alfred Hopkinson, "I should not necessarily have voted for the pig which got first to the water, though no doubt it would have been called the most advanced politician of its time. I would rather give my vote sometimes for those who are called weak- kneed people, but who have the strength to resist changes recommended to a party by its caucus." In conclusion, Sir Alfred Hopkinson quoted Mill's remark that no real de- mocracy was possible in which minorities were not adequately represented, and declared that proportional representation was the only chance for English freedom.
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