produces a balance of members in favour of one party, though even this
may fail to be realized at no distant future, but the balance of members
may be and has been under our present system in contradiction to the
balance of the electors; or in other words, a referendum would answer
the vital question which party is to govern, in the opposite sense to
the answer given by a general election. This is so frankly admitted in
the Report that it is difficult to understand how the Commissioners can
recommend adherence to a process which they have proved to be a
delusion. Even on the bare question of ascertaining what government the
nation desires to see installed at Westminster, the present method is
found wanting, whilst the reformed plan, by giving us a reproduction in
miniature of the divisions of national opinion, would in the balance of
judgment of the microcosm give us the balance of judgment in the nation.
If a referendum is really wanted, a general election with single-member
constituencies does not give us a secure result, and an election under
proportional representation would ensure it. A different question
obviously disturbs many minds, to wit, the stability of a government
resting on the support of a truly representative assembly. Here again it
may be asked whether our present machinery really satisfies conditions
of stable equilibrium. We know they are wanting, and with the
development of groups among us, they will be found still more wanting.
The groups which emerge under existing processes are uncertain in shape,
in size, and in their combinations, and governments resting upon them
are infirm even when they appear to be strong. It is only when the
groups in the legislature represent in faithful proportion bodies of
convinced adherents returning them as their representatives that such
groups become strong enough to restore parliamentary efficiency and to
combine in the maintenance of a stable administration. It may require a
little exercise of political imagination to realize how the transformed
House of Commons would work, and to many the demonstration will only