advances in recent years. In one shape or another it has been adopted in
many countries in Northern Europe, and there is a prospect of a most
important extension of this adoption in the reform of the parliamentary
institutions of France. Among ourselves, every political writer and
speaker have got some inkling of the central principle of proportional
representation, and not a few feel, sometimes with reluctance, that it
has come to stay, that it will indeed be worked into our own system when
the inevitable moment arrives for taking up again the reform of the
House of Commons. They know and confess so much among themselves, but
they want to be familiarized with the best machinery for working
proportional representation, and they would not be sorry to have the
arguments for and against its principles once more clearly examined so
that they may be properly equipped for the reception of the coming
change. This little book of Mr. Humphreys is just what they desire. The
author has no doubt about his conclusions, but he goes fairly and with
quite sufficient fulness through the main branches of the controversy
over proportional representation, and he explains the working of an
election under the system we must now regard as the one most likely to
be adopted among us. His qualifications for his work are indeed rare,
and his authority in a corresponding measure high. A convinced adherent
of proportional representation, he stimulated the revival of the Society
established to promote it. He was the chief organizer of the enlarged
illustrative elections we have had at home. He has attended elections in
Belgium and again in Sweden, and when the time came for electing
Senators in the colonies of South Africa, and Municipal Councils in
Johannesburg and Pretoria, the local governments solicited his
assistance in conducting them, and put on record their obligations for
his help. The reader can have no better guide in argument, no more
experienced hand in the explanation of machinery, and if I add that Mr.
Humphreys has done his work with complete mastery of his subject and