PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.1 SIR,—Mr. Hobhonse, in his letter of August 21st, points out clearly that under the present system of single-Member seats
the loyal minority in Ireland are unfairly and artificially deprived of their fair share of representation ; but he concludes his letter by saying that he does not believe "in the possibility of proportional representation." Now, the system advocated by the Proportional Representa- tion Society has been in operation for thirty years in Denmark without any hitch or difficulty ; other systems, less complete perhaps, though not less simple, are in operation in various countries, as, for instance, in Brazil, Italy, Ac.; and even among ourselves the " cumulative " vote used in the elections for School Boards is a form of proportional representation which certainly requires more intelligence than the single transferable vote.
The supposed difficulty of proportional representation is, in fact, one of the most extraordinary fallacies I have ever
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