Is it too much to say that, if the Hobart experiment be persevered with,
the ultimate tendency will be the return of six members, each acceptable
to one-sixth of the electors, and obnoxious to the other five-sixths?
It is quite obvious already that the usual party lines are entirely
disregarded.

+Professor Commons.+--The best book on the subject yet published is the
"Proportional Representation" of John E. Commons, Professor of Sociology
in Syracuse University, U.S. Its great merit is that the political and
social bearings of the reform are fully treated. Professor Commons
rejects the Hare system in favour of the Free List system. He
writes:--"The Hare system is advocated by those who, in a too
_doctrinaire_ fashion, wish to abolish political parties. They
apparently do not realize the impossibility of acting in politics
without large groupings of individuals." He makes a great step in
advance of the disciples of Mr. Hare in recognizing that the
proportional principle should be applied to parties, and not to
individuals, and he even defines parties correctly as being based "not
altogether on sectional divisions, but on social and economic problems
of national scope;" but, unfortunately, he fails to see that there can
be only two parties, and that the representation of small parties would
not reform the main parties, but break them up altogether. At the same
time he is no mere theorist, for he declares:--"If a practicable and
effective method of proportional representation cannot be discovered,
the theoretical principle is a mere dream." Moreover, he prudently
recognizes that his arguments as regards Federal and State Legislatures
in America are in advance of what the public is ready to accept, and
adds:--"We, as a people are not yet ready to abandon the notion that
party responsibility in Federal affairs is essential to safety." His
immediate object is, therefore, the reform of city councils, which in