THE MINORITY CLAUSE. T HE Elections being now completed, we may
fairly ask whether the representation of the country is more or less perfect in consequence of the Minority clause, so far as it has been applied ; and what is still more important,—whether a more enlarged application of the same principle, in case of the further equalization of electoral districts, would or would not improve the character of the representative system. To discover this by the light of the facts we have, we must define what we mean by a good representative system. And we lay down this principle,—that a representative system is the better for representing truly the relative local strength of parties, if it does not by that means diminish the executive Parliamentary strength of the party proved to be in the majority. And this principle we cannot even conceive anybody doubting. The Pall Mall of Monday remarked that an infinitesimal party majority in any county (say, Lancashire) has the same right to be represented in the House of Commons by a large working majority of something like two to one, that an infinitesimal majority of a handful of votes in the Legisla- ture itself has to be represented by the practical control of the whole policy of the country. The remark seems to us to have no meaning or weight at all, except on one hypothesis. If, indeed, you are so afraid that parties throughout the country are balanced in an exact equilibrium that you desire to add a great artificial value to any majority, however small, so as to give it working power, then the Pall Mall may be right. But if a true local representation of the country would give just as large a working majority to the party in the ascendant as a purposely distorted one, then the object for distorting the true relations of local party strength in order to strengthen your executive, fails at once. It can be no advantage in itself that Lancashire, while even balanced just now between Tories and Liberals, should be represented in Parliament by twenty-one Conservatives and eleven Liberals. It may be necessary for the efficient working of Parliamentary institutions that every minute local majority should be immensely magnified in the Parliamentary picture of it, but that is not desirable in itself. If the country would get as efficient a governing majority by having its different localities truly painted in Parliament, as by having the actual majority immensely magnified in the picture, then no reason- able being can doubt that it would be much better for the parts to be truly represented as well as the whole. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the attempt at a subdivided local representation at all. Lancashire, or for that matter England itself, might vote as a whole, and whichever party got the majority might nominate the whole representation in the House of Commons, unless the idea of the representative system be to represent as truly as we can, not only the general result, but the parts which contribute to that general result.
Assuming, then, our principle that, unless prejudicial general effects follow from the attempt to make our local picture of the relative strength of parties true or truer, it is in itself an advantage to have such a true local picture, let us ask what light we can get upon the subject from the practical working of the Minority clause in the few places to which it has been applied, and from the working of the opposite system where large constituencies have been divided into fresh units without a minority representation, instead of being furnished with one.
In Hertfordshire the Liberals were to the Conservatives about in the relation of 37 to 34, and by the operation of the Minority clause there were returned two Liberals to one Conservative, which, of course, exaggerates the real Liberal strength. Again, in Herefordshire the Liberals were to the Conservatives about in the relation of 22 to 33, and there, by the operation of the minority clause, there were returned one Liberal to two Conservatives,—a result exaggerating the local Conservative strength, but not so much as the result in Hertfordshire exaggerated the Liberal strength. In Berk- shire the Liberals were to the Conservatives in the ratio about of 25 to 31, and there, by the working of the minority clause, they returned one member and the Conservatives two. Again, in Cambridgeshire the Liberals were to the Conserva- tives in the relation of 33 to 39, and there, by the action of the minority clause, they returned one Liberal member to two Conservative members. These were, we believe, the only English counties subject to the minority clause in which there was any contest to test the actual strength of parties ; and in these we see that, taking these four counties together, there were returned, by the action of the minority clause, five Liberals to seven Conservatives by parties which may be said to be very nearly in that ratio,—say, on an average, in the ratio of 29 to 34, which shows a certain loss of strength, as compared with the ratio of their votes, to the weaker party, the Liberals. On the other hand, but for the minority clause they would have carried but one of these counties, Hertfordshire, and gained, had the number of seats been the same, all the three seats there ; while the minority seats in Cambridgeshire, Here- fordshire, and Berkshire would have gone to the Conservatives, leaving the Liberals with three seats to the Conservative nine seats. The minority clause therefore in those counties has not given the Liberals a representation up to their full party strength, but much beyond what the ordinary majority principle would have given.
Now to pass to the boroughs where the clause has had any operation, i.e., where there has been a party contest. We find that in Liverpool, the Liberals being to the Conser- vatives in about the ratio of 15 to 16, the Liberals returned one member and the Conservatives two ; that in Man- chester, the Liberals being to the Conservatives in the ratio of, say, 21 to 15, the Liberals returned two members and the Conservatives one ; that in Leeds, the Liberals being to the Conservatives about 2 to 1, the Liberals returned two members and the Conservatives one ; that in Birmingham, the Liberals being to the Conservatives in about the ratio of 22 to 8, the Liberals returned all the three members ; and that in Glasgow, the Liberals being to the Conservatives in about the ratio of 27 to 11, the Liberals returned all the three members; —the result of which is that the minority clause gave the Liberals 14 to 5, or nearly 3 to 1, in constituencies where their strength, taken on the whole, was not quite 2 to 1. In other words, the minority representation, though it gave the Conservatives five borough members, where with the same number of seats to fight for they would only have had three without it,—the three seats for Liverpool,—and though it diminished the Liberal strength from 16 (if there had been as many seats to obtain) to 14, really gave the Conservatives considerably less than the strength due to their proportion of voters, just as in the counties we have named it gave the Liberals less than the strength due to their proportion of voters. The conclusion is, that while the minority principle in both eases gives a certain representation to the weaker party which it would not otherwise have, it gives a much less adequate one where the weaker party is very weak,— as the Conservative party was in most of the great boroughs we have named,—than where the weaker party is tolerably strong, as the Liberal party was in all the counties we have named. The minority principle has, in flick given the Liberals in the three-cornered counties much more than it has given the Conservatives in the three-cornered boroughs, and for this reason,—that in three out of the six three-cornered boroughs the Conservative party was practically insignificant, while in all the three-cornered counties the power of the Liberals was substantial, though often very inferior to that of their rivals. Anyhow, the practical result has been not to weaken the working majority, but to strengthen it. Thus far, then, the operation of the Minority principle would seem to be not in the least to diminish the executive majority of the superior party, if applied simultaneously to counties and boroughs, but only to rectify the local truth of
the representative picture without affecting at all the final majority of the more popular side,—which indeed it some- what swells, because wherever the majority of one party is suffi- cient to secure all the seats in certain localities in spite of the minority clause, the party strong enough for this purpose gains without any corresponding addition to the „gains of its opponents ; and it is obviously intrinsically likely that only one party will usually be strong enough in the country to succeed in this. Strong as the Conservatives are in the counties, there is probably scarce one English county division which, if it had three seats, and the voters only two votes each, would not have returned one Liberal ; yet the converse of this has hap- pened in two of the three-cornered boroughs, and would have happened in three out of the six, if the Liberals
of Leeds had pulled together. The operation of the minority clause adds to the relative strength of the strongest party, just 80 far, and only so far, as it may prove to have ! strength enough to beat its opponents in some constituencies so completely as to carry all the seats in spite of the minority clause. And this seems to us to give a very desirable bonus, as it were, to the party, whichever it be,—(and it is scarcely likely to be more than one at a time),—which has anywhere popular strength enough for this purpose. It adds something to the working or executive Parliamentary majority of the more popular party, while really distributing much more evenly the local representation.
But now, to try how the extension of the principle would practically work, let us take a county in which at present the minority principle has not been applied at all, though it has to certain great boroughs within its limits,—Lan- cashire. Suppose that instead of subdividing Lancashire into four, and giving two members to each division, Mr. Disraeli had left South Lancashire its three members, with a minority clause, had given North Lancashire a third, with the same clause, and had given Oldham and Salford, the two most populous of the Lancashire boroughs after Liverpool and Manchester, a third member each, with the same provision, what would have been the result ? In each of the county divisions the Liberals would have carried the third seat, as also in Salford, while the Conservatives would have carried the third seat in Oldham. The effect would have been that Lancashire would have returned 4 Conservative and 2 Liberal county members, while the Liberals would have carried 12 and the Conservatives 14 borough members, or the total repre- sentation would have been 18 Conservatives to II Liberals,— we need not say a far truer representation of Lancashire than the present. Now, suppose Mr. Disraeli had acted nearly in the same way by other counties now sending up a too great quotum of Liberal members in proportion to their popular vote, for example, Devonshire, which sends up eleven Liberals (10 for the boroughs and 1 for the counties) to six Conservatives (5 for the counties and 1 for a borough). Suppose, instead of the third county division, Mr. Disraeli had given a third member to each divi- sion, and taking one seat each from Tiverton and Barnstaple, had added minority seats to Exeter and Plymouth. The effect would have been to return two Conservatives and one Liberal in each county division, or 4 Conservatives and two Liberals for the county, and to give two minority seats to Conservatives, in Exeter and Plymouth, both of which would probably have been lost by the Liberals. On the whole, the county would have returned instead of eleven Liberals to six Conservatives ten Liberals (two for the counties and eight for boroughs) to seven Conservatives,—a truer representa- tion of the total popular vote ; and the same kind of change would have rectified the absurd result of the three Kents returning six Conservative members and no Liberals in spite of the great Liberal county vote, without diminishing the relative strength of the Conservative party, at least sup- posing, as that party believes, that its strength is unfairly under-represented in the English boroughs. It seems to us clear, that without in the least diminishing the strength of the majority, the further extension of the minority principle would remove the false appearance at present presented of the counties pitted against the boroughs,—would rectify, in short, the local representation without diminishing the real majority of the party truly superior in numbers throughout the country. Curiously enough, we showed last week that in
Great Britain the Liberal majority was about one-sixth of the total popular vote ; which is, as near as may be, the Parliamentary majority of the Liberals, namely, one-sixth of 658, or 109. Now, the problem seems to us to be this,— how, without altering the general truth of result, to give a truer local representation to individual places. And this can, we believe, be done, and can only be done, by an extension of the minority principle, or something equivalent to it in effect.
Of course there are special inconveniences in the present work- ing of the principle which ought to be removed, like the diffi- culty of getting a minority member re-elected if he accepts office, and has to resign his seat without a general election. But the proper remedy for that difficulty is to abolish at once the idiotic provision that to accept office should vacate the seat.
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