P.R. IN IRELAND
SIR,—The stereotyped objection to the P.R. System is that it is too complicated for average voters and candidates, the results being arrived at by a "process suitable as task for Senior Wranglers." (Vide P. A. Shaw.) What nonsense! Twenty-five years ago the Imperial Parliament imposed the system on Ireland—all Ireland—for Parliamentary and Local Government elect6ns. Since 'hen the system worked satisfactorily in
that part of the country successively known as Southern Ireland, the Irish Free State, and Eire. Northern Ireland abolished it and reverted to the old system—but whatever anyone may think of Government policy under Lord Craigavon, few outside his own party and following would call it democratically progressive. Whatever weakness is inherent in the system, it returns members of Parliament and of local bodies in fair proportion to the divisions of opinion indkated by the voting. As to the complica- tions, do you allow that the English, Welsh and Scots are less intelligent or less mathematical than the Irish?—Yours,
SOUTHERN IRISHMAN.
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