PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SpiciLios."1
SIR,—Mr. W. W. Carlile writes in your issue of last week that proportional representation bad been tried in South
Australia before 1874 with unsuccessful results. He states that Mr. Waterhouse, a former Prime Minister of the Colony, told him this. I am afraid Mr. Carlile is misinformed. Proportional representation was never tried in South Australia. What was done was this. The Colony was made one constituency for the election of the Council, but each elector voted according to the traditional plan, giving one vote apiece to as many candidates as had to be elected, or at least as many as he cared to vote for. By this plan the majority, working steadily together, could return all the members of the Council and efface every suggestion of proportional representation. I remember, something like forty years ago, at a small meeting in the Adelphi Terrace, another ex-Prime Minister of South Australia made a state- ment similar to that Mr. Carlile attributes to Mr. Waterhouse, saying Hare's idea had been tried in the Colony and failed. Mr. Mill was present at the meeting, and after this statesman bad spoken he said, speaking in that quiet, mild, deliberate voice a few may still remember, that what had been described as an application of Mr. Hare's ideas embodied every defect Mr. Hare tried to avoid, and missed every advantage he desired to secure.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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