Parliament and Electorate
The Government's plan to set up a conference on electoral reform and redistribution of seats, presided over by the Speaker of the House of Commons, relieves the Home Secretary of an invidious task. In such a conference as this the experience of Members of Parliament can be pooled, and there is likely to be sufficient agreement to give the Government a clear lead before it has to frame a Bill. There are many matters which ought to be considered and decided before the country goes to the polls at the next General Election, the most urgent being the questions of the method of election (Proportional Representation foremost among them), and redistribution of seats. The former is important because it influences the latter. Redistribution presents immense difficulties, and it may have to be carried out on a major scale twice in the near future, once before the elections, and once when the population has sorted itself out again after the war. The war has had the effect of shifting the population en masse from one area to another, doubling the number of people in one constituency and halving it in another. But it has to be recognised that the first years of peace will probably see another shifting of people, not necessarily back to their former homes, but somewhere. Mr. Morrison's Proposal to set up a permanent body of boundary commissioners will facilitate further measures of redistribution if and when they become necessary. This redistribution question should have priority, and should perhaps be the subject of an interim report ; but there are many other problems to be dealt with, including those of qualification for the vote, the possible merging of the Parliamentary and local government franchise, and the costs of Parliamentary elections. In regard to the last, consideration should be given not only to the limitation of actual election expenses, but to the question whether the whole expense, except in the case of candidates who forfeit their deposits, ought not, to be borne by the State. State payment of election expenses is the surest way of diminishing the excessive powers of the party machines.
Previous page
