parties may go for many years without any representation, or with
representation quite disproportionate to their numbers. By the method
of proportional representation, every man's vote counts, and every
considerable body of opinion can send its representative to council.
Men of marked personality, who have aroused too great hostility to
make them safe candidates as we vote today, because they would be
unlikely to win a majority, can get a constituency sufficient to elect
them, while the harmless nobody, elected today only to avoid a feared
rival, will have less chance. The evil gerrymander will be abolished,
and representative bodies will be divided along party lines in the
very proportions in which the people are divided.

Moreover, since on this plan every vote counts, the greatest source
of political apathy will be removed-that sense of hopelessness which
paralyzes the efforts of the members of a minority party. Corruption
will hardly pay; for whereas at present the boss has but to win the
comparatively few votes necessary to swing the balance toward a bare
majority, in order to have complete control, he will upon this plan
secure control only in actual proportion to the number of votes he
can secure.

Another advantage of the system lies in the stabler policy it will
ensure. Our present system results in frequent sharp overturns,
according as this party or that may get a temporary majority. But this
battledore and shuttlecock of legislation does not represent the far
more gradual changes in public opinion. A system whereby the number
of representatives of each party is always directly proportioned to
the number of votes cast for that party would make it possible to evolve
a careful machinery of government, as is not possible with our periodic
upheavals and reversals of personnel and policy.[Footnote: See