granting the assumption, the small parties might just as well be single
electorates as far as the main parties are concerned. The Liberal
candidates might be successful in all of them, and the Conservatives be
unrepresented. The peculiar feature is that the defeated Conservatives
are expected to transfer their votes to the Liberals to make up the
quotas for the small parties!

The third claim is that electors should have perfect freedom to vote
exactly as they please, and yet Professor Nanson, in condemning Mr.
Hare's original scheme, has denied that they are free to vote as
faddists; but he still holds that they are free to vote on any basis if
only they form one-sixth to one-twelfth of an electorate. Thus the
amount of freedom is variable and a matter of opinion. Now, we
altogether deny that electors should be given the opportunity to
subordinate the national interests to factious interests. Just as the
faddist argument is fatal to Mr. Hare's original scheme, so the
splitting up into factions is fatal to Professor Nanson's present
scheme. Where is the freedom which Professor Nanson claims under the
present system of election? Is it not the fact that throughout England,
America, and Australia the electors have very often a choice between two
candidates only--one Ministerialist and one Oppositionist? By all means
let us have as many political organizations as possible to make known
the wishes of all sections; but the true function of all such
organizations is to influence the policies of the two main parties, and
not to secure independent delegates in Parliament. This means simply
that the compromise among the different sections supporting a party must
be effected in the electors' minds, and at the elections, and not on the
floor of the Legislature.

The fourth claim is the emancipation of the voters from the tyranny of