signed at Cape Town, the process of race unification, both in the
Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, would have been facilitated, and
the conflicting interests of the constituent States and of town and
country would not by their exaggerated expression in the United
Parliament have impeded the consolidation and unification of South
Africa. The problem presented by racial differences is not confined to
South Africa. The United Kingdom itself presents a conspicuous example
of a nation in which the process of unification is still far from
complete, and the process has been retarded, and is at the present time
being retarded, by the electoral method in force. Not only does Ireland
still continue to chafe against the Union, but the racial divisions
within Ireland itself are encouraged and fostered by the failure of our
representative system to do justice to minorities. The South and West of
Ireland is represented in the House of Commons by Nationalists, and
Nationalists alone, and, ranged in opposition to them, the North-East is
represented by a smaller but equally determined body of Unionists, while
those forces in Ireland which would endeavour, and in the past have
endeavoured, to bridge over the differences between the North and South
are entirely unrepresented. Had the minorities in the North and South of
Ireland been represented within the House, there would probably have
still remained a notable contrast between the two areas, but that
contrast would not have appeared in its present heightened form, and, in
addition, with a true electoral system there would have come from
Ireland representatives whose sole aim and purpose was to achieve its
unification. The picture which Ireland would have presented within the
House would have been of a different character to that presented to-day,
and the perennial Irish problem would have been infinitely less
difficult, because the forces which made for union would have had full
play. Even the unification of England and Wales may, in some respects,
be described as incomplete; but such differences as exist largely arise