EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS
CAPTAIN GORDON CANNING AND THE RIFFS.
Mr. C. F. Ryder, Scarcroft, near Leeds, writes : "Will you allow Me, as a member of the Riff Committee of London, to suggest that the criticism of Captain Gordon Canning, in the Current 'number of the Spectator, is premature, inasmuch as we -have only got, so far, a second hand version of his relations with Herr Hacklander ? The Riff Committee, which has the .fullest "confidence in Captain Canning, is composed of men of _various religions and political views who consider that ,` Self Determination,' having been once for all enunciated and accepted as a 'Working principle in international affairs, cannot belimited to the white races of Christendom."
MINORITY GOVERNMENT IN GERMA'NY.
Mr. John H. Humphreys (secretary of the. Proportional
Representation Society) writes : your note:on Germany YOU 4ay Everybody. knows,- thet under the present system of Proportional Representation the deadlock-would-be merely reproduced.'- I , comment on this ? The existence of many political parties in Germany—eleven at the present time—is frequently attributed to the working of the propor- tional system introduced in 1919. But under the single- member system, which prevailed from 1871 to 1919, there were as _many parties, and sometimes more, and no one party ever had a majority of seats. To return to the single. member system would afford no prospect of creating a simpli- fication of parties in Germany akin to a two-party system. Proportional Representation has kept post-War Germany on an even keel."
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