Sir John Lubbock has been prosecuting, with some vigour, what
Mr. T. H. Bolton calls his " Hare-brained " scheme for pro- portional representation this week. On Monday he summoned a meeting of the political happy family of which he is the head, in Prince's Hall, Piccadilly, where he was supported by Mr. Courtney, Mr. W. Buxton, and others among the Liberals ; by Lord Folkestone and Mr. E. Clarke, amongst the Conserva- tives; and by Mr. Bradlaugh among the Radicals. Sir John Lubbock proved, what no reasonable man denies, that under the scheme of single seats and sub-divided constituencies it would be perfectly possible for a minority of the whole electorate to obtain a majority in the greater number of constituencies, and so to return a majority of the whole House of Commons. No doubt it is barely possible; the only question is whether much worse results would not be liable to occur under his plan. Mr. Courtney insisted on the deficiency of working-class Members as if it were a result of the single-seat method. Now, in the first place, we have not yet tried the single-seat method ; and in the next place, there is nothing to prove that working-men do generally prefer representatives belonging to their own class, so long as the representatives chosen adequately express working- class opinions. Mr. Bradlaugh was enthusiastic in his ad- herence to the Hare scheme ; and Mr. E. Clarke anticipated the all but unanimity of the great towns in refusing to be divided into single-seat sections, but had not any evidence to produce for his anticipation ; indeed, all the evidence seems to go the other way. However, of course the Association carried its resc- lution against Mr. Bolton's amendment by a large majority.
