it is not avowed with the candour of the representative of an Alpine constituency in Switzerland who voted against the phylloxera law because there were no vines in his canton.1 There cannot be too many efforts made to induce the electors, and consequently their representatives, to step out of the narrow groove of the particular and to take their stand on the general, on the national. It would be a grievous mistake and a sad misfortune if, after centuries of struggle for emancipation, the antagonisms of interests and the selfishness of classes were invested with a legal form conferring on them political individuality. No doubt, a community lives on interests, as man lives on bread, but in a society whose life is not a mere greedy scramble, interests ought to be made dependent on ideas, which, divested of the personal, that is to say, of the narrow and paltry element, are alone able to establish the harmony of justice among the diverging tendencies. Far from facilitating the manifestation and the classification of political opinions, the separate groups of interests would hamper them systematically, placed as they always will be, by the law itself, in the contracted sphere of their special preoccupations. Every political problem unconnected with these preoccupations will throw the members of the "social combination" into confusion. The question will be put to the citizens, but the electors will always have to reply, whatever the subject may be, as traders, as agriculturalists, or as manufacturers, etc. The group may be as "organic" as you please, its members will be like "dispersed atoms" when confronted with all the variety of national questions; they will often exhibit more divergence and more incoherence in their opinions than many a citizen belonging to different groups of interests. Even supposing that professional freemasonry produces a community of views strong enough idem sentire de republica, this community of views will still have to be brought out at the elections. How will this be done, especially in a large combination numbering thousands of members? The problem of establishing a previous agreement of the electors remains therefore untouched, and the system of "organic representation," of "representation of interests," leaves everything as it was! If there is anything worth noticing in the ideas on 1 Quoted by Numa Droz (ex-President of the Swiss Confederation), Études et portraits politiques, 1895, p. 95,

which it is founded, it is that the only combination which can supply a sphere for electoral action is the "grouping of similar interests"; but as this similitude can only assert itself really within the limits of a particular problem, "the only combination which is truly organic (I, who am ignorant of biology, will substitute for the word 'organic' the word 'rational') and truly free," is a combination according to the problems. In other words, the system of representation of the interests identified with social groups condemns itself in a way, and brings us back to the method which I advocate, as the only one that can solve the great electoral problem.

On the other hand, if there is any ground for the complaint that the authorized representatives of the "interests" find it difficult to get into the legislatures, which are monopolized by lawyers and unqualified politicians, this evil might be remedied without abandoning the whole national representation to the "interests." The authentic representatives of economic and other interests might be provided with a particular means of entering the chambers and giving the latter the benefit of their special knowledge. A place might be found for them in the upper house, in the senate, by bestowing a proportion of the seats on the great social organizations and the constituted bodies chambers of commerce, agricultural societies, trades' unions and masters' associations, learned societies, universities, churches, great public bodies (such as, in France, the Cour de Cassation, the Conseil d'État, and the Cour des Comptes). Their sole mission being, from their special competence, to advise the representatives, direct and indirect, of universal suffrage, these spokesmen of the "interests" would play the part of experts, of technical assessors, in the assemblies. To prevent them losing this character, and to preclude the creation of a new category of politicians, or, at all events, of a class of political mandarins, it would be well to limit the duration of their mandate to the discussion of a single budget. This measure will besides facilitate the rotation which it would be necessary to establish between the different sections of the country, which would appoint special representatives by turns, as the number of seats that might be reserved for them in the senate would not allow, for instance, trades-unions of every in

dustry and of every district to be all represented at the same time.

XVI

A second method of classifying the opinions of the electors which has been proposed of late years, and which has attracted far more attention than the representation of interests, is that of proportional representation, which would admit into national assemblies not only the predominant opinions, but all opinions in the exact ratio of their numerical strength. In the earlier part of this book we have witnessed the introduction of this problem into politics by T. Hare and J. S. Mill.1 The reader will remember the exceptional importance which the illustrious philosopher attached to the idea of "personal representation" for the future of democracy, and the qualifications. which I have been led to make on this subject, while recognizing the grandeur of Hare's conception and the clear-sightedness with which he had discerned the new conditions in which political society had to work. Since the days of Hare and J. S. Mill, the idea has made considerable progress in the world, it has found ardent champions in all latitudes, and it is proposed as the great, the best means of organizing universal suffrage and regenerating political life at the same time. The opposition which the idea encountered from writers and legislative assemblies has not been less determined, although it was not inspired by the generous feelings that animated its champions who engaged in a crusade against the majority system, that iniquitous and brutal system which confers all power on the half plus one of the persons voting, crushes minorities by reducing them to a sort of political slavery, warps the foundations of representative government, and inevitably spreads demoralization and corruption in public life. Various forms of proportional representation were contrived, which were to ensure a more and more correct reproduction of all opinions. The objections which were made, and which are still being made, to these schemes are by no means all conclusive. Some, which condemn proportional representation, because it would lead to a crumbling away of parties and stifle the "organic" spirit of the nation, to use a term with

1 See above, Vol. I, pp. 104-112.

which we are already acquainted, or because the electoral procedure entailed by it would be extremely complicated, are unwarranted or exaggerated. Other objections do not deserve discussion; they only prove the tenacity of the prejudices and the inveterate habits which are blindly opposed to all innovation. But it is also unquestionable that proportionalism would be attended with serious drawbacks. And it would be surprising if this were otherwise. The material of a political régime is limited like that of a single garment in which repairs can be made only with pieces cut out of the fabric itself. Every political reform intended to fill a gap in the régime makes a hole in it at some other place, which can be perceived at once, or will only be revealed later on by experience. The practical proposals which I have just made myself, and which I am about to supplement in the following pages, will probably not escape this fate either. The sole point is to make a correct estimate of what will be gained and what lost by the change. That is the whole secret of the political art. Equally free from the religious enthusiasm which animates the champions of proportional representation and from the lofty disdain professed for it by its opponents, I, for my part, hold that, all things considered, this reform would show a balance of advantages for representative government, because it is able to ensure a more equitable distribution of political influence and, at any rate, to convey the idea of it to the electors, to give minorities a standing, to increase, in certain respects, the independence of the elector, and to make the monopoly of the dominant parties less exclusive.

But while admitting that these important results may be obtained, I cannot help seeing that this reform of representation would not of itself solve the problem of the organization of universal suffrage. It deals with one part of this problem only, with that which constitutes the last act of the electoral drama; of the preceding acts the plans of proportional representation take no account, as if they were accomplished automatically, as if they were something that goes of itself. The system proposed by the eminent initiator of the reform, Thomas Hare, is the first to reveal this omission, and in the most flagrant manner. I will recall the main lines of this system here: each elector has but one vote, can return

but one member, whatever the number of the seats to be filled up; but he is free to put down on his voting-paper the names of several candidates in the order of his preferences, firstly the one whom he wishes as his first choice, and then the one whom he wants next, and so on. When the votes are counted, the first step is to divide the total number of the voting-papers by that of the seats to be filled up; the quotient determines the number of suffrages necessary for a candidate to be elected. The electoral quotient once fixed, the votes of the candidates who head the lists are first counted. As soon as a candidate has reached the figure of the electoral quotient, he is declared to be elected, and the voting-papers which contained his name are eliminated. If his name is still found on the remaining voting-papers, it is disregarded, and its place is taken by the candidate who comes second on the voting-paper and who now moves up, for the counting of the votes, into the first line, being followed by the candidates mentioned after him on the voting-papers, who thus all go up one line. The counting of the votes is continued on the same plan until the number of seats to be filled up is exhausted. When instead of a surplus of votes the candidates of the first choice have a deficit, this can be made up, in a similar way, by the subsidiary votes, of the second or third line, bestowed by other electors, on condition that their vote is no longer of use to their first or their second choice. The candidates of the first choice who cannot obtain the electoral quotient are eliminated, and their votes are transferred, on the above plan, to the candidates who come after them on the voting-paper. Whenever, in spite of the transfers effected, there still remain seats for which no one has obtained the quotient, the one who gets nearest to it is declared elected. Thanks to this plan, which demands from the elector no effort but that of writing on the voting-paper his favourite candidates in the order of his preferences, each group of electors whose number is equal to the quotient is sure to obtain one representative, and not more than one. No vote or suffrage of eventual preference, given to a candidate able to attain the quotient, will be lost; that is to say, that each elector will have his representative, his member, expressly chosen by him, and the members will be the really free and deliberate choice of the electors and the