decision to adopt it was that such a system tended to secure
representation for minorities.[4] Yet, as prophesied in the debates of
1885, the minorities in the South and West of Ireland have since that
date been permanently disfranchised; in the eight Parliaments,
1885-1911, they have been entirely without representation. This
continued injustice is in itself sufficient to show how baseless was Mr.
Gladstone's assumption that the system of single member constituencies
would secure representation for minorities. This example, however, does
not stand alone. In the General Election of 1906 the Unionists of Wales
contested 17 constituencies, and although at the polls they numbered
52,637, they failed to secure a member; their 91,620 Liberal opponents
secured the whole of the representation allotted to those
constituencies. In addition the Liberals obtained the thirteen seats
which the Unionists did not challenge. The minority throughout Wales,
numbering 36 per cent, of the electors, had no spokesman in the House of
Commons. This result shows how completely a system of single-member
constituencies fails to protect minorities, and an analysis of the votes
cast in Scotland in 1910, both in January and December, reveals the fact
that the Unionist minority only escaped by the narrowest of margins the
fate which befel the Welsh Unionists in 1906. The figures speak for
themselves:--

SCOTLAND (Boroughs and Counties, January 1910)

Parties. Votes. Seats Seats in
Obtained. proportion
to Votes.
Liberal 352,334 59 38
Labour and Socialist 35,997 2 4
Unionist 255,589 9 28