MINORITY ELECTIONS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—The figures officially published by the Secretary to the Proportional Representation Society show conclusively that if the system advocated by that body had been in force at the recent General Election no Party would have secured the clear working majority without which the King's Government cannot be effectively carried on, and it would thus have been again necessary to resort to the expedient of a Coalition, which the great majority of the electorate have so emphatically condemned. It is certain that, in normal conditions, the same dilemma would invariably recur, and I cannot but think that some simple form of alternative voting would be preferable to a more intricate system which would puzzle the average elector, and the outcome of which would be the death- blow to single-party government.
The comments of Mr. Lloyd George and others upon the apparent anomaly that the present administration is in power by virtue of a minority vote are to a large extent fallacious. Not only have the 57 uncontested returns (three-fourths of which fell to the Conservatives) been left out of account, but also the very important fact that the non-Conservative candidates were in opposition, not only to the Government nominees, but to each other. An analysis of the figures at the triangular by-election at Newport, Monmouth (a typical industrial constituency, by the way), in October last, and of those for the same constituency at the General Election in November, shows that a majority of the Liberal electors decided to support the Government candidate when the contest had resolved itself into a straight fight between Conservatism and "Labour," and it may fairly be deduced that that candidate would have headed the poll if an alternative vote had been exercisable at the October election. Speaking generally, it is to me inconceivable that any Conservative or moderate Liberal elector would, by preference, transfer his or her vote, alternatively, to a Socialist candidate in a triangular
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