PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

[To THE EDITOR OP THR " SPECTATOR."] SIR; I have noticed that for some time past you have been urging the need for a system of proportional voting in Parlia- mentary elections. In this connexion a few figures from the recent election for the Commonwealth Parliament may be of interest as showing what glaring anomalies the present system of voting may lead to. In the late election three Members of the Senate had to be elected by each of the six States of the Federation, and each elector had the power to vote for three candidates, each State voting as one con- stituency. Of course the large majority of the electors voted the party ticket, giving their votes to the three Labour or the three Liberal candidates, as the case might be, and it happened that in every case the number of Labour voters was sufficient to bring their candidates to the head of the poll by a considerable, though not overwhelming, majority. The result is given in the following table, taken from a. Sydney newspaper. The first two columns refer to the Labour Party, the second two to the Liberals:—

State.

Tasmania West Australia South Australia

Queensland ... New South Wales Victoria

••• ••• ••• ••• •••

•••

Number of Voters.

30,000 42,000 67,800 81,000 245,000 230,000

Members Returned.

3

•••

•••

3 • a•

••• 3

• •• ••• 8 ••• 3 ••• a •••

•••

Number of Voters.

24,000 30,000 40,000 80,000 243,000 218,000 Members Returned.

0 ... 0

O o Thus the extraordinary result has come about that 685,800 Labour voters have returned eighteen Members, while 648,000 Liberal voters have returned none. It appears to me that this is the reductio ad absurdum, of the present method of voting, and one of the strongest arguments in favour of reform that I have yet seen.—I am, Sir, &c., Gladesville, New South Wales. B. Sonancazz.