PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I trust you can publish the enclosed.—I am, Sir, &c., Tom H. RUMPIIRYS.
The Proportional Representation Society, 82 Victoria St., S.W . 1.
AN APPEAL TO THE BRITISH PEOPLE.
After an interval of four years you are again called upon in circumstances external and internal of unprecedented importance and complexity to elect a House of Commons to represent your opinions, to express your character and to enforce your will. We do not wish to discuss the issues to be decided in this election —proportional representation draws its support impartially from all parties. We wish rather to direct your attention to the faulty conditions and methods of our present electoral system and to indi- cate that the remedy is to be found in proportional representation.
It is indeed hardly disputed that the machinery by which you are asked to give your verdict and to take part in the management of your own and the world's affairs is inadequate for its purpose.
In each constituency many electors will be driven to vote for candidates with whom they disagree on matters of importance The result may be a travesty of the national mind. In many constituencies candidates unable to rely for election on the support of voters like-minded with themselves and com- pelled—if they are to be successful—to seek the support of the in- different electors, may be tempted to make promises which they are unable to fulfil, and to make appeals to passion rather than to reason. The result may be a caricature of the national character.
In each constituency contested by more than two parties the whole of the representation will go to the largest of three or perhaps four sections, and so very often to a minority of the voters, leaving the majority without representation. The aggregate result may be a misrepresentation of the national will.
For these evils P.R. affords a remedy.
P.R. ensures that the House of Commons shall be an accurate instrument of the national will, a true reflection of the national mind, a worthy embodiment of the national character. P.R. gives the electors a wide choice of candidates ; it introduces into elections the necessity for more thought and it diminishes the power of passion. Without it democracy is a sham ; with it, elected bodies are for the first time made truly representative.
If the principle of representative government in this country is to survive the attacks which, in its present form, it invites and encourages, there should be no delay in applying the remedy.
GREY, President The PARMOOR, Chairman of Council Proportional A. C. MomusoN-BELL, Chairman of Executive Representation ANEURIN WILLIAMS, Treasurer Society. October 80th, 1922. •
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