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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 58

Appendix A

page 17

Appendix A.

Mr. Lytton to Sir A. Paget. Copenhagen,

Sir,

In conformity with the instructions contained in the Earl of Clarendon's circular despatch of February 27, 1857, and in the circular despatches upon the same subject addressed by Earl Russell to Her Majesty's Missions in the months of January and March 1860, I have the honour to submit to your inspection, with the request that you will be so good as to transmit the same to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the present Report upon the system now in use in Denmark for the election of Representatives to the Rigsraad, or Supreme Legislative Council of the United Kingdom of Denmark and the Duchies of Schleswig, Lauenburg, and Holstein.

* * * * * * *

In the first place, the mode of direct election for the Danish Rigsraad is a subject of which the interest, indeed, cannot be exhausted by the few general remarks to which this Report must be necessarily confined; but which, nevertheless, furnishes within comparatively close compass more matter for interesting inquiry than any other of which I can possibly think.

In the next place, it enables me to place on record some facts which I believe to be but little known, and which appear to me deserving of an attention greater, and more serious, than they have hitherto received.

In the third place, this is a subject which I venture to think of singular and special importance, because it illustrates by the experience of eight years (although, indeed, within limits much narrower than I could wish) the practical working and effect of a system of election which indeed has hitherto only been considered in England as a theory, but which has, nevertheless, been recently recommended to public attention by the mature approval of a profound and accurate thinker, whose opinion upon all questions of social and political progress is, perhaps, the most generally esteemed in Europe.

I believe that it was in the year 1859 that Mr. Thomas Hare first published his now well-known treatise on the "Election of Representatives."In 1860 some modifications of Mr. Hare's system were suggested in a pamphlet by Mr. Henry Fawcett, and the work has subsequently appeared in amplified form, but with greater condensation and simplification of the original system. In 1861 the proposals of Mr. Hare received additional weight from the concurrence and authority of Mr. John Stuart Mill, in whose recent work upon Representative Government one of the page 18 most interesting chapters is devoted to the explanation and advocacy of those proposals.*

But in the year 1855, that is to say, four years previous to the first publication of Mr. Hare's theory of representation, a Danish statesman of great eminence and ability, considering the same subject from a different point of view, and arriving at almost identical results by a different process, had fully anticipated every essential principle and part of the electoral system first advocated in England by Mr. Hare.

It is obvious that in England this system, as yet barely promulgated, must, whatever its merits or defects, so long as it represents only a theoretical conclusion, be encountered by that mass of permanent and preconceived objection which adheres to all theory, and which is, indeed, itself the result of conclusions equally theoretical.

"Among the ostensible objectors to Mr. Hare's scheme, some profess,"says Mr. Mill, "to think the plan unworkable."

There must always be ground sufficient to support objections of this nature to a scheme which has not been worked. It is, therefore, a fact by no means unimportant that in Denmark, at least, the scheme in question, or one precisely similar, has actually been working for eight years. For if the question "Will it work ?"can be eliminated, the more important question of "What may be the result of its working ?"will be entitled to increased attention. Nor is it uninteresting to find that, as regards the main question, the same result has been sought and attained in two instances by a dissimilar process. For if a disputed problem should present precisely the same result to two persons, one of whom undertakes to prove it by mathematics and the other by geometry, the conclusion will then stand upon double grounds that this result is accurate. The grounds upon which both Mr. Hare and Mr. Mill have probably formed the conclusions in which they agree, as to the best basis of an electoral system, would appear to have been chiefly political. Those upon which the basis they recommend has been established in Denmark are no doubt chiefly mathematical.

With the details of Mr. Hare's electoral theory the purpose of this Report is not immediately concerned. That purpose is merely to make intelligible the main features of the Electoral Law established in Denmark in the year 1855 for the election of Representatives to the Rigsraad.

To do this, however, the speediest and simplest means will be to take Mr. Hare's scheme as a point of comparison and reference. It will there

* Since writing the above, I find it stated in a note to the last edition of Mr. Hare's treatise, as well as in a contribution by the same writer to "Frazer's Magazine"for February, 1860, that the scheme in question was first published in 1857. This does not, however, alter the fact that it is Mr. Andræ, ex-Minister of Finance in this country, to whom is due the honour of having first conceived, as well as rendered practicable, a system of election by which the representation of minorities is secured in just proportion to that of the majority. A very slight and inadequate approximation to the great principle realized in this law does, indeed, appear to have been made in a scheme of municipal election for South Australia, attributed to Mr. Rowland Hill, and printed by order of the House of Commons, as early as 1839. I have not seen the details of this scheme; but it is obvious that they cannot have constituted anything more than a very partial and superficial recognition of the principle elaborately worked into law by Mr. Amine in 1855. A more analogous instance mentioned by Mr. Hare is the Duke of Richmond's project of a Reform Bill in 1780.

page 19 fore be necessary to state what is the substance of this scheme. I will endeavour to do so as briefly as I can.

It will then be possible to contrast this scheme, in its chief characteristics, with that which is now law in Denmark, and which I propose to describe, pointing out to what extent the two systems coincide and in what respect they differ. Rightly to appreciate either the one or the other, it is necessary to bear in mind the ends which, in both cases, it has been sought to attain, and the reasons for which these ends have, in each case, appeared desirable. I must, therefore, ask permission to refer in passing to this important part of the subject. I shall do so as rapidly as is compatible with the claim of such a subject to be seriously considered. It will also be necessary, in referring to the Electoral Law of 1855, to point out the peculiar circumstances which unfortunately, by limiting the application of that Law, diminish its value as a practical example. Finally, I shall endeavour to record what, so far as I can yet judge from such conversation as I have been able to hold with persons of intelligence and impartiality interested in the subject, is the general impression in this country, after eight years' experience, of the practical effects of the electoral system devised by Mr. Andæ, and how far the result of it may be considered as having satisfied the intentions of the author.

I. Notwithstanding the length of time during which Representative Government has existed under various forms, it is not surprising that the majority of questions concerning government by representation should still be open to debate; for the conclusion to be formed upon any question of this kind must always be in relation to circumstances peculiar to the country in respect of which the question has to be solved. But in regard to the fundamental principle upon which all government by representation is based, and to the complete realization of which every form of Representative Government must approximate, in a greater or less degree according as the development of it is favoured or impeded by local circumstances, there would seem to be no reasonable ground for difference of opinion. It has been admitted on all sides that the completest form of Representative Government must be that in which the greatest number of interests and opinions are completely represented; that form of government, in short, which most nearly approximates to the government of the whole by the whole. But by those who have arrived at the conclusions which have dictated, in the one case Mr. Hare's electoral scheme, in the other Mr. Andæ's electoral law, it is argued that such a result is incompatible with any system of representation which tends to assume the part as tantamount to the whole; in other words, to confound the majority with the people.

If, it is argued, the representatives of the majority be suffered by a political fiction to represent more than the majority, not only an arithmetical misstatement, but also a great political injustice, takes place. For the minority is then not merely unrepresented, but it is actually misrepresented. It is compulsorily incorporated into the majority; and this forced fellowship is, to use the words of Mr. Burke, "conquest and not compact."If it were possible to suppose (what is never the case) that the whole of the country were, indeed, divided into only two sections of opinion, of which one was more numerous than the other in the proportion of three to two, the minority in that case, if adequately represented, would stand in the representation at a proportion of two to three; but if it should occur, as it naturally would occur without some provision to the contrary, that the majority in each constituency were to dispose of the entire representation of that constituency to a member of the more numerous class, instead of there being in the Legislature two of the less numerous to every three of the more page 20 numerous sect, the minority would, in fact, have no means of meeting their adversaries in the Legislative Body at all. "They are,"says Mr. Hare, "previously cut off in detail;"and in qualifying such a result, he cites the authority of M. Guizot, "Si la minorité est d'avance hors de combat il y a oppression."

But the evil, it is further argued, does not stop here. For all customary majorities are, indeed, only an agglomeration of minorities, each of which, rather than remain altogether unrepresented, has preferred to secure a sort of partial and collateral representation as part of an aggregate, which coheres only, perhaps, upon a single and often secondary point. The majority is thus only a majority of a majority, "who may be,"says Mr. Mill, "and often are, a minority of the whole." "Any minority," he adds, "left out, either purposely or by the play of the machinery, gives the power, not to a majority, but to a minority in some other part of the scale."

And, although this inequality is, no doubt, balanced, to a great extent, in a system of representation such as that which obtains in England, by the fact that opinions, predominating in different places, find rough equivalents for the minority with which they are swept away in one place by the majority they secure in another; yet, if the suffrage were to be extended much further (and it cannot be considered as final at a point which leaves out of direct representation the most numerous class in the country), the danger which, under the present system, must then arise of Government by a single (and that, on the whole, the least educated) class has long been apparent to statesmen of all parties. At the same time it would be palpably unjust and humiliating to advocate the permanent exclusion of this numerous and important class from all direct representation, on no better grounds than those which involve the admission that the whole representative machinery of the country is constructed upon a principle so erroneous that the motive power cannot be augmented without throwing the entire machine out of gear.

To these considerations is added that of the deterioration of political character to which voters may be exposed by any sort of compulsion, to select as their Representatives, not those men whom they regard as the most enlightened and most honest exponents of their opinions or interests, but those who seem most likely to conciliate the local, and often ignoble, animosities by which majorities themselves are divided.

II. The above summary, although very imperfect, is sufficient to indicate the principal motives which, both in this country and in England, have suggested to eminent statesmen* the necessity of devising, if possible, some modification of the Electoral system, calculated to secure a more adequate representation to the interests of minorities.

I will now enumerate, within the narrowest possible limits, the most prominent of those provisions by which Mr. Hare proposes to obviate a defect, the existence of which is hardly disputed, and by which, in the Electoral Law of 1855, for the nomination of Representatives to the Supreme Council of Denmark, Mr. Andræ has sought to secure the same result, viz., the protection of minorities.

The essential character of the scheme proposed by Mr. Hare may be thus summed up :—

* Besides the works above mentioned I may refer to the Reform Bill introduced by Lord John Russell, 1854, which in regard to one of its provisions has been characterized as "the most remarkable, and, looking at its spirit rather than its form, the most philosophical amendment of the representative institution which has in this country had anything like authoritative sanction."—Representation in Practice and Theory, "Fraser,"February, 1860.

page 21
1.The number of voters to be divided by the number of members composing the Legislative Body. The quotient to form the electoral basis, that is to say, every candidate obtaining the quota of votes shall be returned.
2.No more than the quota strictly necessary for his return is to be counted in favour of any candidate. The surplusage of the votes given to any elected candidate is to be distributed in favour of other candidates, in conformity with the principle embodied in the following provisions:—
(a.)The votes to be given locally; but every elector to be entitled to vote for any candidate who may offer himself in any part of the country,
(b.)Each elector to deliver a voting paper containing other names in addition to that which stands foremost in the order of his choice. His vote is to be counted for only one candidate. But if the candidate whose name stands first upon his list shall either fail to make up the quota, or shall have made it up without the assistance of his vote, the vote in question may then descend in the order of preference given to it by the elector to some other candidate who may stand more in need of it, and in whose favour it shall then count towards completing the necessary quota.
(c.)The question which of the votes obtained by each candidate shall count for his own return, and which of them shall be released in favour of other candidates, shall be decided in such way as to secure the representation by the candidate in question of all those who would not otherwise be represented at all. The remaining votes, not needed for his return, to be disposed of by lot or otherwise.
(d.)The voting papers to be conveyed to some central office and there counted; first votes being preferred to second votes, second to third, and so on. The voting papers, after being verified, shall remain in public repositories accessible to all.

This is a very meagre exposition of Mr. Hare's scheme, which is as minute in its details as it is large in its scope.

It is, however, enough to serve the only purpose with which it is here alluded to. For the scheme of Mr. Hare is devised with a view to its adaptation to existing circumstances in England; and this Report being only directly concerned with existing circumstances in Denmark, I may at once pass to the consideration of the Law of 1855, merely noting by the way that, if the aims and aspirations of Mr. Hare and Mr. Mill be worth realizing, then the extent to which they have been realized by the Law, and the general results of such experience of the working of the Law as must have been acquired in Denmark during the course of eight years, are subjects well worthy of attention.

III. The constitutional history of Denmark, although comparatively short, is far from deficient in interesting phenomena. Nurseries of self government were planted in this country in 1834 by Frederick VI., who then established Consultative States throughout the kingdom; so that when, after the revolutionary movement which convulsed Europe in 1848, it was deemed advisable to expand the basis of government in this country, the population was not wholly unprepared for increased participation in the management of public affairs. Those, indeed, who at that period were engaged in the work of political reconstruction appear to have been disposed to give to the representative element a larger scope than was eventually accorded to it, and they justified their hesitation on the ground that the constituencies were as yet too inexperienced. An able writer,* who

* "Rigsraads-Valgloven og John Stuart Mill, af O. S."Copenhagen 1863

page 22 has warmly engaged in the defence of Mr. Andre's electoral system, has ridiculed this notion by pointing out that the greater the electioneering experience of the constituency (that is to say, the more rusés the electors), the more certainly must the majority (unless some provision exist to the contrary) succeed in crushing the minority and monopolizing power. For if, as would have been the case under the system then contemplated, 65 members were to be chosen by 65,000 electors, no one elector being entitled to increase the value of his vote by voting for less than the full number of candidates, it is clear that the majority, consisting of 32,501 electors, would only have to hold firmly together in order to carry the whole number of the 65 seats in accordance with their choice. And in that case, no matter how prudently or sagaciously the minority, consisting of 32,499 electors, might exercise their franchise, these 32,499 electors would remain without any representative at all. How, then, should the real opinions of the electors be ascertained, in order that they may be represented in their just proportion? Suppose that of these 65,000 electors, a compact majority of 32,501 is opposed to various dispersed minorities, amounting altogether to 32,499. If the elections are distributed over 65 districts, it is possible that 32,064 of the majority might be found united in 64 districts against 31,936 of the minority. So that it would be only in the 65th district that the minority could make its voice heard. Nevertheless, the majority could only, with strict justice, claim 33 seats, and the remaining 32 should, in that case, it is clear, fall to the representation of various opinions, provided those opinions be not so dispersed as to be unable to come together in any place.

To attain this result—to secure the adequate representation of every tangible opinion and corporate interest, in such way that, while the majority of the electors shall be able to name the majority of the representatives, the minority of the electors shall be insured an equivalent minority in the representation—this is the great problem which, in 1855, Mr. Andræ undertook to solve.

Of all men in this country, his Excellency was, in many respects, the most fitted, by antecedent experience and natural qualifications, to succeed in the difficult task which he thus spontaneously attempted.

Mr. Andræ is a man of original and speculative intellect, a keen investigator, a bold thinker, admitted by all his countrymen to be the first mathematician in Denmark, and, from his position as Minister of Finance, experienced in the art of bringing the fundamental principles of abstract calculation practically to bear upon complicated facts.

The scope of his experiment, however, was painfully limited by conditions over which he had no control; and the law of which he is the sole author forms only the incidental part of an institution shaped rather by the force of uncongenial circumstances than by the deliberate option of the ostensible founders of it.

What is called the "Common Constitution of 1855"is but the compulsory recognition of a state of tilings which nobody could desire, and nobody could prevent. That such a political contrivance should be either generally popular or essentially satisfactory was not possible.

The entire Danish monarchy consists of the kingdom, properly so called, and the three duchies, Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg. Of these duchies, the first had long been in possession of political rights and historical associations apart from the kingdom, while the two last formed, in one and the same time, component parts of the Danish realm and component parts of the German Confederation. In 1855 it became necessary, after an acrimonious conflict, to unite these sore and separate members in such sort of way as not to destroy the distinctions which tended to keep them disunited. This was an attempt to give nominal individuality to the State, whilst maintaining the virtual individuality of all its page 23 members; to give external cohesion to a substance of which the constituent parts were to remain internally separated one from the other. All the interests affected by such an experiment were sure to remain disappointed by the result of it; and the general vague unpopularity of this Constitution, both in Denmark Proper and the Duchies, attaches without thought or distinction to every part of the obnoxious instrument.

But this was not the only disadvantage under which the new electoral system was initiated, as will be readily seen by a glance at the restrictions imposed upon its operation by the terms of the Constitution into which it had to be incorporated.

This Constitution, reserving the executive power to the Crown, acting by responsible Ministers, subject to impeachment, distributes the basis of legislation into separate Assemblies for the Kingdom and the Duchies, subject to a superior Council, representing the united interests of the whole monarchy. This supreme legislative body, entitled the Rigsraad,* consists of eighty members, and is thus constituted: twenty members are nominated by the Crown for a period of twelve years, in the proportion thus indicated:—
From Denmark Proper 12
From Schleswig 3
From Holstein 4
From Lauenburg 1
20
The remaining Go are elected, whether directly or indirectly, for a period of eight years; and of these, 30 are elected by the Provincial Assemblies in a proportion approximative to the population represented by those Assemblies, as thus:—
By the Rigsdag or Diet of Denmark Proper 18
By the States of Schleswig 5
By the States of Holstein 6
By the nobles and landed proprietors of Lauenburg 1
30

The other 30 members of the Rigsraad are nominated by the direct vote of the constituencies.

Denmark elects 17
Schleswig elects 5
Holstein elects 8
30

* The Rigsraad sits every second year for two months. It may be prorogued once in two years for a period not exceeding four months; and the King can dissolve it at his pleasure. If dissolved, it must be reassembled within four months, and more than two dissolutions cannot take place within a period of two years. The qualifications for a seat in this Council are—complete citizenship (i. e., the possession of all rights and privileges to which a native-born subject is, as such, entitled), unblemished personal character, and the absence of any legal claim upon such property as the candidate may possess. The qualification for the direct electoral franchise is, in addition to the first above-named condition:—thirty years of age, and the annual payment of 200 dollars (about £25) in direct taxes; or, an annual income of 1,200 dollars (about £135). Private members of the Rigsraad cannot introduce Bills, but can petition the Crown for their introduction. The Ministers take part in the debates of this body in virtue of their office, but cannot vote unless they are members.

page 24

The composition of the Rigsraad is, therefore, threefold; 20 members being nominated by the Crown, 30 indirectly, and 30 directly elected; in all, 80 members.

According to the Census of 1800, the entire population of the Kingdom and Duchies amounted to 2,004,024, so that it was only for the direct election of 30 members out of a population of upwards of 2,000,000 to an Assembly of 80 members that the electoral system of Mr. Andra! was empowered to provide*. Holstein and Lauenburg have always refused to send members to the Rigsraad. For these Duchies the Constitution of 1855 is suspended; and, therefore, 20 members must be deducted from the total of 80 nominally composing the Rigsraad, and 8 members from the 30 originally contemplated as the quota of direct representation in the Rigsraad; consequently, it is only the choice of 45 out of 60 members that is practically affected by the electoral system of Mr. Andræ.

This, no doubt, diminishes the value to be attached to the success or failure of the system as an example. It is somewhat like an experiment in a pond upon principles of navigation which, if good for anything, must be good for the ocean. Nevertheless, it is an example; and, in questions of this sort, an example of any kind is most valuable. Eight years' practical experience of the working of an electoral system devised for the realization of an important principle applicable to all representative institutions is—no matter how "cabined, cribbed, confined,"be the sphere of that experience—a great and noteworthy addition to the knowledge of mankind.

Under circumstances so disheartening and within limits so restricted as those already mentioned, a mere perfunctory legislator might well have shrunk from the thankless task of pondering first principles in a matter of secondary effect. It would have been easy to have left untouched the root of a difficulty by which nobody was at that time greatly alarmed.

But Mr. Andræ seems to have thought that no question affecting the duty of individuals and the welfare of nations can, under any circumstances, be of secondary importance; that superficial legislation, even on a small scale, is a great evil, and the political embodiment of a right principle, however minute, a great good.

Nay, the very circumstances which limited the number, and reduced the influence, of the direct Representatives of the nation in the National Legislature, rendered it doubly important that these Representatives should, at least, be the very best.

If the voice of the Constituencies was only to weigh in a scale of less than one to two amongst the voices composing the Supreme Council of the realm, it was all the more incumbent upon the State to provide that the true opinions and interests of those constituencies should be accurately expressed by men of the highest intelligence and character.

But this was not the only good which it was possible to attain, and therefore necessary to attempt. By bringing into view a higher standard of representative intelligence, to raise in the sequel the moral and intellectual standard of the constituencies themselves; to impress, as much as might be, on the mind of every voter that he is called by the State to the performance of a solemn duty, not merely indulged in the enjoyment of a noisy right; to constrain him to reflect and select; to induce him to think calmly, and enable him to feel rightly, by extricating him as much as possible from

* The indirect election of members to the Rigsraad by the local legislative bodies is, however, conducted upon the principle, and in conformity with the stipulations, of Mr. Andræ's electoral law. This should be borne in mind.

page 25 narrowing and ignoble influences;—this, also, was an object to be striven for, inasmuch as the character of nations is but the collective expression of the character of individuals, and the political greatness of the one must, in the long run, depend upon the moral and intellectual worth of the other. Especially is this the case with those States in which the form of Government is popular. In popular States, says Montesquieu, a force other and greater than the constraining power of the laws, or the arm of the Prince, is needed for self-preservation : "cette force c'est la vertu."

To effect such a result it was foreseen that it would be necessary, not indeed to dislocalize entirely the sympathies and associations of the voter, but by the removal of arbitrary restrictions to expand the range and elevate the character of his choice.

The various clauses of the Electoral Law of 1855 sufficiently indicate, I think, that although the conclusions of its author were no doubt arrived at by a mathematical process, these political considerations were not absent from his mind.

It was not possible to obliterate entirely the old electoral divisions. But these were simplified and rearranged by expanding the area, and reducing the number of them.* The great object in view, however, was to secure to each elector a reasonable certainty that his vote should bear its full value in favour, not of some candidate imposed upon his adoption by local restrictions and local caucuses, but of the candidate really preferred by him in the free exercise of his individual judgment; and it was felt that this object was to be attained rather by a just electoral basis than by any merely geographical arrangement. To find such an electoral basis was the real problem. "You will find it,"said Mr. Andræ, "if you divide the number of electors by the number of members to be elected, and take the quotient as the quota of votes necessary and sufficient for the election of each candidate. This is the only just electoral basis."

If, for instance, there are 6,000 electors, and six members to be elected, the quotient will be 1,000, and it is obvious that, in that case, wherever 1,000 electors are agreed in their choice of a Representative, that choice is entitled to be represented.

The ways by which it has been sought to establish the basis thus fixed will appear in the following paragraphs, which I extract and translate from

* Denmark Proper is divided into seven dioceses ("Stifter") and nineteen bailiwicks ("Amter"). The diocese was originally a division purely ecclesiastical, each diocese being administered by a bishop. Practically speaking, the bailiwicks into which the country is actually divided cannot be considered as subdivisions of dioceses. By the Law of 1855 the suffrage is distributed over nine electoral districts.

1. The diocese of Seeland elects 7 members.
2. The diocese of Lalland and Falster 3 members.
3. The diocese of Jutland 7 members.
4. Part of Schleswig 1 members.
5. Part of Schleswig 1 members.
6 Part of Schleswig 1 members.
7. Part of Schleswig 1 members.
8. Part of Schleswig 1 members
9. Holstein 8 members
30

The minute electoral subdivision of Schleswig is a feature in the Law of 1855 which will be more fully noticed further on.

page 26 the Law of 1855, and which form, indeed, the nucleus of Mr. Andræ Electoral system.

The similarity between this system and that of Mr. Hare already referred to is so striking that, in order to illustrate it in the simplest way, I shall venture to place in parallel columns corresponding paragraphs from the one and the other.

Some Clauses of the Law of 1855 for the Election of the Representatives to the Rigsraad, framed by Mr. Andræ. Some of the Clauses of the proposed Electoral Law published by Thomas Hare, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, in 1861.
§ 18. At such times as the elections are about to take place, the President of the Electoral district shall forward to each of the Electoral Colleges thereto appertaining, as according to the terms of § 8 of this Law, the requisite number of printed voting papers, which papers shall be properly drawn out according to the prescribed form, by the Minister or Ministers whose Department is there-with concerned. And the said voting papers shall be so arranged as that they can be sealed and provided with the name and the address of the person sending them, for distribution among the electors inscribed on the register. A certain time shall be allowed to each elector, the duration of which time shall be stated on the voting paper, and cannot be less than eight days from the date of sending the voting paper; and before the expiration of this time the Elector must return to the President of the Electoral district the said voting papers, sealed and accompanied by his address, after having clearly and precisely inscribed upon the said voting paper the names as well as the position or status of those persons to whom he accords his vote, and after having affixed his signature thereunto. XIV. Every vote shall be given on a document setting forth the name and address of the elector, his number on the register of electors, and the name of the candidate for whom the vote is given; and if the vote be intended, in the events provided for by this Act, to be transferred to any other candidate or candidates, then the name of such other candidate or candidates must be added in distinct numerical order, in the form following, viz.:—
"Name.
Address.
Vote, No.
Parish of
Borough of
"The above-named elector hereby records his vote for the candidate named first in the subjoined List, or in the events provided for by the statute . . . for the other candidates successively in their numerical order, viz.,"&c.
Extract from Clause VIII.:—
. . . . And the said Registrars respectively shall cause "such a number of copies of the said lists "(of candidates) "to be transmitted daily to the Returning Officers of the said constituencies as shall be sufficient for the use of every elector registered in such constituency."
No voting paper shall lose its validity even when the voter shall have inscribed upon it the name of only one candidate. But, as in accordance with the terms of § 23 of this Law, such a vote is liable to be nullified, the elector who desires to give to his vote its full importance is recommended not to confine it to the candidate whom he prefers to all others, but, on the contrary, to men- page 27 tion likewise the names of any persons whose election he desires in a secondary degree, and to inscribe the said names upon the voting paper in the order of his preference under the name of the candidate chiefly preferred.
§ 19. In case it should happen that an elector has fixed his domicile within a jurisdiction other than that in connection with which he figures on the register, it shall be competent to him to obtain a voting paper upon application to the President of the Electoral Administration of the District in which he is domiciled, provided that the application be made at the least fifteen days before the time fixed for the elections to take place, and it will be at its own charge to transmit the said voting paper, properly filled up, to the Electoral Administration of the district in connection with which he figures upon the register.
§ 20. Six days after the date fixed for the return of the voting papers, the "Administration"appointed for that purpose shall carefully compare the said papers with the registered list of electors, and the said papers, so far as they shall be found conformable to the said register, shall be transmitted, together with the said register, to the President of the Electoral Administration of the district (or circle).
§ 21. The elections shall be publicly conducted. The day and hour at which they are to take place shall be announced at least fifteen days previous to the opening of the said elections, in the "Bemngske Politiske og Avertisements-Tidende,"or in such other journal as may be fixed upon for that purpose by the Electoral Administration.
§ 22. The elections are opened by the President, who shall begin by counting the number of voting papers sent in. This number, when ascertained, shall be divided by the number of members to be elected to the Rigsraad by the Electoral District, and the quotient obtained page 28 after rejection of any fraction of the dividend which may appear after division, shall then form the electoral basis in conformity with the terms prescribed in the paragraph following. I. The registrars at every general election, as soon as they shall have received the reports of the returning officers of the various constituencies in England, Scotland, and Ireland (to be transmitted to them as hereinafter mentioned), showing the number of votes polled in every constituency, shall compute and ascertain the number of votes polled at such election, and shall divide such total number by 654, rejecting any fraction of the dividend which may appear after such division, and the number of the said quotient found by such division shall be the quota, or number of votes entitling the candidates respectively, for whom such quota shall be given, to be returned at the said general election as members to serve in Parliament.
§ 23. After having replaced the said voting papers in the urn, and after having then mixed them together, the President shall draw them out one by one, and affix to each voting paper in succession a running number. The said President shall then declare aloud the name which he finds inscribed first in order upon each voting paper, and the name thus proclaimed by the President shall at the same time be duly recorded by two members of the Electoral Directory. The President shall take care to put aside those papers on which the same name most frequently appears. So soon as the name of any candidate shall have recurred a sufficient number of times to attain the full quota of votes mentioned in the preceding paragraph of this Law, the reading of the voting papers shall be suspended. A further verification of the votes thus recorded shall then take place, and if the result be satisfactory, the candidate in question shall be duly elected. The voting papers which have been verified shall again be put aside, and the President shall proceed to read out those that remain. "Whenever the name of the candidate already elected shall appear again upon the voting papers, the name of the said candidate shall be cancelled and replaced by the name immediately underneath it in the order of the votes upon the voting paper whereon it is found. This second name page 29 is thenceforth to be considered as standing in the place of the first name, which, having been already cancelled, disappears altogether from the voting list. So soon as the name of any other candidate shall have recurred in connection with the number of votes required for the full quota, the same process shall be repeated; and after the result shall have been verified, the examination of the remaining voting papers shall proceed in the manner already provided, care being always taken to efface, whenever they reappear, the names of those candidates who shall already have attained the full quota of votes. XVII. Extract And he (viz., the returning officer) shall then ascertain and declare the number of voters which has been polled in the same constituency for the several candidates respectively, counting for such purpose only the votes for the candidates whose names are placed at the head of or first on the respective voting paper; and when the returning officer shall have received from the registrars their declaration of the quota of voters at such general election as aforesaid, if one or more candidate or candidates shall have so polled in such constituency the quota or quotas of votes, then the said returning officer shall (after setting apart the said quota or quotas as hereinafter directed) forthwith return the candidate or candidates for whom the majorities or greater number of voters of the said constituency shall have polled (he or they having such quota or quotas as aforesaid) as the member or members to serve in Parliament for such constituency.
XIX. When it shall be found by the returning officer (or the registrars as the case may be) that the votes polled for any candidate, counting only the voting papers in which such candidate is placed first, excluding all cancelled names, shall exceed in number the quota required, the number of the said quota, and no more, except as otherwise hereinafter provided, shall be appropriated to such candidate, &c. . .. . . . And as soon as the quota of votes to be attributed to any candidate shall be thus ascertained, the voting papers making up the said quota shall be set apart and sealed up by the returning officer (or by the registrar, as the case may be); and thereupon the name of the said candidate shall be cancelled on all the remaining voting papers, by being stamped across the same by a stamp of the form to be settled and provided by the registrars, and furnished by them to the returning officer for such use.
In this way the President and Directors shall proceed until the reading of all the voting papers shall have been completed.
§ 24. If, in the course of the proceedings to be conducted in conformity with the terms of the preceding paragraph of this law, it shall be found that the necessary [number ?J of votes to complete the representation of the district cannot be made up,* examination shall then be made of the names of those who have obtained the greatest number of votes, and of these candidates the candidate who represents the majority of votes shall be chosen. No candidate, however, shall be elected who has not obtained a number of votes sufficient to constitute more than the half of the full quotient; and if this number of votes shall be equally recorded in favour of two or more candidates, the choice between the aforesaid two or more candidates, thus representing the same number of votes, shall be determined by lot.
§ 25. In the event of it being

* Of the full number of electors entered upon the register it is supposed that some may occasionally abstain from the exercise of their franchise. That the representation of all should be crippled by the indifference of a few would be unjust; but if a number of electors sufficiently important to be entitled to a representative abstain from voting, it is just that they should remain unrepresented.

page 30 found still impossible to terminate the elections by the means provided in the preceding paragraph, the reading of all the voting papers is resumed; and care shall be taken to withdraw from amongst the names of those candidates first inscribed at the head of such voting paper, who have not yet been elected, a number sufficient to complete the elections. In this case the decision will depend upon a simple majority of votes. If the number of votes be equal, the decision shall be determined by lot.
XXV . . . . And so many of the said remaining candidates as shall, together with the candidates who have previously obtained the quota of votes as aforesaid, be sufficient to make up the whole number (654) of members to be chosen, each and every of whom shall respectively have polled a greater number of votes than any other of the said remaining candidates, shall be returned as members to serve in Parliament by the returning officer of the constituencies of which they have respectively polled a majority or majorities of votes as hereinbefore provided (Clause IX.); and if, upon such computation by the Registrars, it shall appear that two or more of such candidates having such comparative majorities of the unappropriated votes as aforesaid have polled an equal number of votes, and cannot both, or all, be returned as members as aforesaid, then preference shall be given to the said candidates in the order of their priority in the gazetted list of candidates prepared as hereinbefore provided.* . . . And the registrars also shall, as soon as possible, certify to the returning officers of the constituencies in which the said votes have been polled the names of all the candidates who have failed to obtain a quota of votes, or a number sufficient to form one of the said comparative majorities, or, being equal to one of such majorities, have been excluded as not having the priority as aforesaid, and that in consequence thereof such candidates cannot be returned at that election as members to serve in Parliament.
§26. When a single member only is to be elected, the method of election provided by §§ 22-25 is not to be adopted, inasmuch as in this case the choice shall be decided by a simple majority of votes, always, however, with the restriction aforementioned, viz., that in the event of an equality of votes the decision shall be by lot. XXX. When a seat shall for any cause be declared to be vacated, the returning officers, on receiving the direction of the Speaker of the House of Commons to that effect, shall, by a circular letter addressed to the electors forming the constituency of the member who had filled the vacant seat, acquaint them of such vacancy, and shall at the same time transmit to the said electors a list of all the candidates for the same, arranged in the order hereinbefore prescribed for the gazetted lists of candidates at general elections, and shall acquaint the said electors that they are at liberty to transmit to the said registrar their votes respectively, in a form thereby furnished, for any of the candidates contained

* "Clause IX.—The names of all the said candidates shall be inserted in the said gazetted list, in the following order, viz., as to all persons who have theretofore been members, beginning with the candidate who shall have sat the longest, and ending with the candidate who shall have sat the shortest period of time in Parliament; and as to new candidates, according to their age, as the same shall be stated in the declaration given to the Registrars as aforesaid, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest of such new candidates; and where any such length of time or age shall be the same as to two or more candidates, or shall be doubtful or not stated, then according to an alphabetical arrangement of the surnames of such candidates as to whom such particulars shall be so equal, or doubtful, or not declared, and which alphabetical arrangement of names as to new candidates shall be placed after the other names in the said list."

page 31 in such list, and that the candidate having the greater number of the votes of such constituency will be declared to be elected a member to fill the vacant seat.
§ 27. At the close of each election the said voting papers shall be collected, sealed up, and kept for reference in the public archives.
§ 28. The President of each Electoral Administration shall, without delay, make known to every elected person or persons that the said person or persons has or have been duly elected; and furthermore, the said President shall call upon the said elected person or persons to declare whether he or they accept the choice of the electors as recorded in favour of such person or persons; and if, within a period of eight days after this announcement by the President as aforesaid, no excuse shall have been received by the said President from the said person or persons, then such person or persons shall be considered as having accepted the choice of the electors that he or they shall represent the said electors in the Supreme Council.
XXVII. . . . And after sufficient time shall have been afforded for the purposes aforesaid, as well as for gathering from the voting papers such statistical or other information as shall be thought useful, the registrars shall cause all the voting papers to be redelivered to the several returning officers respectively from whom the same were respectively received, and with whom they shall remain; and the same shall, with the voting papers set apart and retained by the returning officers aforesaid, be at all seasonable times accessible to voters, candidates, and others requiring to inspect them, or any of them, at their own cost, and which cost shall be settled by the returning officers, and shall not exceed the due remuneration of the classical labour and attention on such inspection; and every elector shall be at liberty to refer to and examine his own voting paper without cost.

IV. From the extracts just given, the general coincidence of the law of Mr. Andræ with the scheme proposed by Mr. Hare will be apparent. Between the two electoral systems, however, there are some slight points of difference, which I shall now venture to indicate more precisely.

In the elaboration of any electoral system constructed upon the arithmetical principle already described, there is one difficulty which must at once present itself.

The assumption of a prescribed quota of votes, as necessary for the election of each candidate, implies the supposition that a number of electors sufficient to make up this quota shall always be able and willing to group themselves about a number of candidates sufficient to complete the representation.

If, for instance, the representation consists of 100 members, and if this necessary combination on the part of the voters fails to reproduce itself 100 times, the representation will rest incomplete.

But apart from those numerous occasions when the franchise has only to be exercised for the election of a single representative, it is notorious that the full number of electors on the register never does, in any country or on any occasion, come to the poll; and of those votes which are recorded, it is quite conceivable that a certain number should be found exclusively recorded in favour of a particular candidate. These votes, although not needed to complete the necessary quota of the candidate to whose candidature they are confined, could not, in the absence of any authorization to page 32 that effect on the part of the voters in question, be disengaged to complete the representation elsewhere. In that case the result would be a deadlock. This was at once foreseen by Mr. Andræ, and provided for by a very simple arrangement in clauses 24 and 26 of his Law. It was also foreseen by Mr. Hare. But the method in which he first proposed to deal with the difficulty was so complicated that it was opposed as impracticable by those who most warmly approved the general principle of his scheme. This method he subsequently abandoned, and in the last edition of his electoral scheme, from which the preceding extracts are taken, the arrangements proposed are (as it will have been seen) almost identical with those already devised by Mr. Andræ.

It has been shown that, in meeting the difficulty here referred to, both Mr. Andræ and Mr. Hare have been constrained to have recourse to the principle of comparative majorities, to which, in all other respects, their systems are diametrically opposed. The opposite principle of election by concurrent majority, which these systems are designed to embody to the fullest possible extent, is, indeed, clearly inapplicable to all cases of single election. For, in such cases, we should have to divide the whole number of electors by the unit, which here represents the whole number of the representation, and, as the quotient would then be equivalent to the total, it is obvious that without complete unanimity there could be no result. This unanimity is neither desirable nor attainable, and consequently there is no escape from the adoption in these cases of the principle of election by relative majority.

But in the 24th clause of Mr. Andræ's Law there appears a feature which does not appear in any clause of Mr. Hare's proposed Reform Bill.

The peculiar local circumstances for which, in framing the Law of 1855, Mr. Andræ was compelled to provide, rendered it expedient to insert a proviso that no candidate should be elected by less than a number of votes sufficient to make up more than half of the full quotient. This proviso would, no doubt, be unnecessary in a law of the same character applied to a more extensive electoral area, and I am therefore disposed to regard it as an exceptional stipulation which does not call for further notice.

But there is a question of greater importance on which I apprehend that Mr. Andræ and Mr. Hare are directly at issue.

The general tendency of both systems is to delocalize representation. But Mr. Hare obviously clings with affection and respect to those local features in the character of the representation which his system would certainly obliterate if he had not laboriously, and as it seems to me lovingly, endeavoured to counteract and restrain its tendency to uniformity by a variety of careful contrivances for the maintenance of local relations between the constituencies, as well as for the distinction of one constituency from another. How far these contrivances are really practicable or compatible with the active operation of the system under which they must be carried out; how far it may be possible in one and the same time to efface from the constituency all legal subdivisions, and maintain all local distinctions of parts, to remove all visible landmarks from the electoral field, and yet identify particular representatives with particular groups of voters, is a question into which I shall not presume to enter, the more so as it involves a problem, enthusiastically accepted, indeed, and ably dealt with by Mr. Hare, but altogether rejected by Mr. Andræ.

Mr. Andræ has no partiality for these distinctions, and no desire to retain them. He has, indeed, been constrained to admit their existence, because he has found them already existing under the protection of circumstances which forbade him to disturb them.

In the note to a preceding page of this Report I have enumerated the page 33 various electoral districts over which the operation of the Law of 1855 is distributed. It will, no doubt, have been noticed that there are in Schleswig no less than five small electoral divisions, each returning only one member a-piece to the Rigsraad. It is obvious why Mr. Andræ should be opposed in principle to this sort of subdivision of the constituency. In each of these five districts the principle of his Law is virtually inoperative, for each of them must necessarily elect its representative by relative majority.

There can be no doubt that the Schleswig constituencies would have been otherwise arranged had this been possible. But the difficulty here was of a foreign rather than a domestic character. Any outcry raised in Schleswig would have been echoed in Germany, and re-echoed in Europe. The Minister most concerned in the question of the Schleswig constituencies was not the Minister of the Interior, but the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who might have found himself worse off than the bear in the fable, for the buzz of remonstrance would not have risen solely from the inmates of the disturbed hive; so the Schleswig constituencies were left as they were found. Mr. Andræ, however, is entirely opposed to all subdivision of the electoral body with a view to the representation of local interests, and in this he is seemingly more consistent than Mr. Hare, but possibly less philosophical. In England, at any rate, the local character of representation is so consequent to the national feeling, that I doubt if it could be safely disturbed; for, practically speaking, all political systems are good only in so far as they are consonant with what is good in the character and associations of the people to whom they are applied; and the natural attachment to native neighbourhood, the patient attention given to local interests, and the sober importance assigned to local duties, are features of the English character which few Englishmen will wish away.

In speaking on this subject, however, I should wish to be understood as representing what I believe to be the personal and abstract opinions of Mr. Andræ, rather than what I believe to be the public and special results of the operation of his Law. By the terms of this Law, it appears to me that ample provision is made for the maintenance of all that is just and salutary in the personal connection between voters and representatives; and, in point of fact, I believe it usually happens that in all cases, excepting those where the candidate happens to be a man of great and exceptional public eminence, the persons put forward for the representation of each constituency are connected by associations, more or less direct, with the local interests of the district which they are invited to represent. Indeed, it stands to reason that this must naturally happen.

Another point of contrast between the Law of Mr. Andræ and the scheme proposed by Mr. Hare remains to be noticed.

In the latter, provision is made for the means by which candidates shall make known to the electoral body their desire to solicit its suffrages. I have not inserted in the preceding extracts the clause which contains this provision, because no corresponding clause exists in the Danish Law. It will have been noticed, indeed, that this Law contains, on the contrary, a clause which implies the anticipated possibility of a candidate, after having been duly elected, declining to accept the votes and represent the choice of the electors. I am informed that such a case is indeed possible, but that practically speaking it never occurs. There can be no doubt that its occurrence would be an exceeding inconvenience. I have been assured by a Danish gentleman, of great intelligence and experience, that there exists in this country, on the part of public men, so strong a disinclination to enter the list of candidates without a reasonable certainty of success, or to make personal solicitation for votes, that even so simple a declaration of candidature as that proposed by Mr. Hare would be viewed with distaste. page 34 Practically, it happens that the candidate is put in nomination by his political supporters, who, having previously ascertained that the feelings of the constituency are such as to justify his nomination, come to a private understanding with him that, in the event of his election, he will not disappoint the electors. Measures are then publicly taken to bring his name into notice, and the nature of these measures will necessarily depend upon the previous eminence and popularity of the candidate.

V. Within the comparatively narrow limits to which this Report must be confined, it does not appear advisable to add any extracts to those already given from the Danish Electoral Law of 1855. Those extracts, indeed, comprise the essence of the Law. The subject under consideration is so suggestive, and demands for its thorough comprehension an examination so various and minute, that I cannot possibly hope to do more on the present occasion than indicate ground for further and fuller inquiry. No extensive comment, however, is needed to distinguish the aim and character of the clause above cited.

I shall now endeavour to state precisely what these clauses are designed to prevent, and what they are designed to secure. It appears to me that the marrow of the whole matter is concentrated in §§ 22 and 23.

There are two ways in which local majorities may, if unrestrained by law, exercise their power in questions of representation, to the detriment no less of minorities than of themselves. They may do so both in the selection and in the election of candidates. They may virtually dictate the vote of the elector by indirectly circumscribing the freedom of his choice. By this means, indeed, apparent unanimity may be obtained; but the greater the unanimity the greater the mischief, if it be only a unanimous submission to "Hobson's choice—this or none;"and when this is the case, it may be truly said of the majorities themselves, "dominationis in alios servitium suum mercedem dant—"they are content to pay so great a price as their own servitude to purchase the domination over others."* For in order to secure unanimity in the choice of the majority, it is previously necessary for the majority itself to abdicate individual action on the part of its own members. Men are more likely to admit unanimity in their passions and prejudices than in their sober judgments : and the candidate thus selected may perhaps represent only a selfish compromise between narrow interests and petty animosities. When this happens majorities, indeed, may show their power by converting a bad candidate into a worse representative, but in doing so they will have also shown that their power is incompatible with their freedom; and that may be said of them which Socrates is supposed to say to Polus in the Gorgias, when speaking of other tyrannies, "They do not do what they wish, although they do what they please."

But, on the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that all political action necessitates a compromise between opinions in matters of minor import. The absence of this compromise is anarchy. It is only when the compromise is compulsory, instead of spontaneous, that it can be called tyranny. For the foundation of all society is confidence in others. All human creeds must originate in faith of some sort, and men can do nothing without taking something on trust. In the public business of life, individual action will always be guided and controlled by collective opinion: and, practically, the opinion of the many is controlled and guided by the wisdom of the few. Every man has a right to think and choose for himself; but all men are not equally able to think and choose well, or equally disposed to think and choose at all: so that, as long as there exists

* Cowley, "Essay on Liberty."

page 35 in the world that discreet deference to the judgment and that wholesome confidence in the character of others without which political combination is impossible, no conceivable electoral system will prevent the choice of constituencies from being greatly influenced by the bias of those local notables who, by personal capacity or social position are fitted to guide the conduct of their neighbours. The object of Mr. Andræ's Electoral Law is, not to annihilate this controlling power, but, on the contrary, to give the amplest scope to its natural operation, by relieving it from the crippling circumscription of arbitrary conditions. Thus the constituent who demurs to "Hobson's choice"is ensured every reasonable facility for bringing forward the candidate he prefers without pecuniary sacrifice, and without incurring that social martyrdom which, in such cases, sometimes seems to justify an assertion of Machiavelli's (whose experience of uncontrolled and triumphant majorities was certainly as great as it was bitter), that "he who deviates from the common course, and endeavours to act as duty dictates, insures his own destruction."*

By enlarging the scope of the voter's choice, moreover, yon elevate the quality of his judgment. When he is free to choose whom he will, not constrained to choose merely whom he must, it is probable that if he gives the preference to a person from his own immediate neighbourhood, the person thus preferred will be, not simply the slavish nominee of a perhaps insignificant but petulant party, but a man whom the voter regards with affectionate confidence and respect Surely it would be unwise to extinguish (even were it possible) those kindly influences which infuse into the public life and spirit of a nation the enthusiasm of local affections, whether they be embodied in a respect for noble names and illustrious houses, or in the grateful recognition of those good deeds which not seldom associate a particular family with a particular neighbourhood. But is it not rather the local demagogues than the real local aristoi who would have anything to fear from the most extended competition with intelligence and virtue? In any case, if the voter, by confining his vote to a single candidate, be exposed to the risk of diminishing its value without thereby benefiting the object of his special preference, it is to be presumed that he will extend the scope of his judgment and his sympathies, and provide for those contemplated contingencies in which his countrymen elsewhere may benefit by the exercise of his franchise. In doing so he will have to look further and think more carefully. It is probable that he will select the other objects of his choice from men of eminence and distinction; because those who are neither eminent nor distinguished cannot then be arbitrarily thrust upon his notice. The voter who does this will elevate his own character and class; and if the whole class of voters do this, the whole class of candidates will be improved.

In the next place, it is no doubt intended by the clauses above mentioned to withdraw from the voter every reasonable excuse for disregarding and neglecting the duty of exercising his franchise, as well as to provide for him every reasonable inducement to perform that duty with the most serious reflection, and to the fullest possible extent.

A further consideration here suggests itself in regard to the relations to be maintained between constituencies and Representatives. Representation has so strong a tendency to dwindle into delegation, that it can only be restrained from doing so, either by great moderation on the part of the masses, or else by great elevation of character on the part of the Representative class. These two restraining forces react, and depend upon each other. In proportion as the character of the Representative class is high-

* "The Prince,"chap. xv.

page 36 minded and scrupulous, it is presumed that the confidence reposed in it by the constituencies will be great; but in proportion as the freedom of the Representative is cramped, and his responsibility impoverished by the exaction, on the part of his constituents, of exorbitant and vexatious pledges, the general character of the Representative class will be low and subservient, and the confidence it can command will be consequently small. In short, in this, as in all other matters of exchange, the quality and amount of the demand will regulate the quality and amount of the supply. When pledges are recklessly exacted, adventurers will always be found recklessly ready to accept them; when the character of the compact is mistrustful, the character of those that undertake it will be untrustworthy. In America, the House of Representatives has long been, virtually, a House of Delegates, wherein the fate of almost every measure is decided before the opening of the Session, and the majority of speeches made are addressed, not to the conviction of the House, but to the passions and prejudices of the constituencies who have sent its members to sit in political fetters. The solemn responsibility of legislation is thus remitted by those on whose part it is a public duty to those on whose part it is only a mischievous assumption. For the nation can impeach its Representatives by the voice of its constituencies; but to whom are the constituencies practically accountable? The danger of this is in the fact that the intellect and conscience of the nation are not adequately represented in the national public life; and the verdict of this intellect and conscience, which must ultimately be heard, not having been provided with any constitutional expression, can only find utterance in revolution. The Long Parliament could not have been swept away by a gesture of Cromwell's if the head and heart of the nation had been in that body. The temple which enshrines a Constitution cannot long escape from destruction when it begins to be muttered about outside the walls of it, that "the gods are departing."In England, the high moral and intellectual standard of the Representative class is powerfully promoted and sustained by the unremunerated character of its service; but under those Continental systems of representation in which the Representative body is paid by the State, the danger alluded to is not insignificant. Not only, however, is it the object, but I am satisfied that it is also the result, of Mr. Andræ's electoral system (so far as that system has been applied) to facilitate the introduction into the National Legislature of the greatest amount of intelligence and high character, and to hinder the entrance of a great amount of ignorance and passion. I am disposed to think that, on the whole, this system in its practical result attains many of the objects of an educational franchise, without invalidating the salutary influence of property.

Two other results are involved in the arrangements of this Law as concerning the question of personal canvass. It is undoubtedly to be desired that every facility should exist for free personal intercourse and interchange of opinion between candidates and voters, and it is not to be desired that the candidate should be to the voter not a man, but merely a name—an abstraction. Whether, however, it be not possible to provide for this reasonable and necessary intercourse without exposing it to the possible degradation of degenerating into one of barter and beggary, is a question worthy of consideration.

A writer, who was not the least distinguished of Milton's contemporaries, has exclaimed, "To what pitiful baseness did the noblest Romans submit themselves for the obtaining of a Prætorship, or the Consular dignity! They put on the habit of suppliants and ran about on foot, and in dirt, through all the tribes to beg voices; they flattered the poorest artisans, and carried a nomenclator with them to whisper in their ear every man's name, page 37 lest they should mistake it in their salutations; they shook the hand and kissed the cheek of every popular tradesman; they stood all day at every market in the public places to show and ingratiate themselves to the rout; they employed all their friends to solicit for them; they kept open tables in every street; they distributed wine, and bread, and money even to the vilest of the people. 'Eu Romanos rerum dominos!' Behold the masters of the world begging from door to door!"*

Might not these words receive with justice a more modern application?

Whether, however, the personal canvass be a good thing or a bad thing, according to this Electoral Law of Mr. Andræ it is quite out of the question.

And with the personal canvass also disappears a very influential personage intimately connected therewith, viz., the electioneering agent. How far the complete effacement from the electoral dramatis personæ of this important but costly character is a result to be admired or condemned, involves a question which will be best answered by those who have had personal experience of the part he plays, both in connection with the pockets of candidates and the morals of voters.

Finally, it appears to be the intention of this Law to increase the sense of individual responsibility in matters of public trust; to place the conscience of each voter in his own keeping, and to take it out of the hands of those careless investors of other men's moral capital who flourish in all large communities, and who appear to consider themselves a sort of joint stock company for conscience, with limited liability. Moreover, it may be said that this Law is, in its tendency, a civilizing Law,—for civilization is the parent of variety in opinions; and it is the intention of this Law to provide not only the amplest expression for all varieties of opinion, but also to utilize to the utmost all manner of ways and means provided by the kindly providence of civilization for the formation of these wholesome varieties.

That these intentions are wise and good will hardly be denied. The only practical questions that remain are, first, whether these intentions are fully realized by the mechanical operation of the Law ? and, secondly, whether (if so) their realization is accompanied by any incidental injury to the salutary interests of the virtual majority?

I have no experience which would justify me in offering a personal opinion upon these issues. I shall endeavour to report with fidelity and impartiality the opinions which (so far as I have yet been able to ascertain them) appear to be entertained in Denmark in regard to the questions thus raised.

VI. I approach this part of the subject with extreme hesitation. Only a few months have elapsed since I came to this country: the time which I have been able to devote to the consideration of the electoral system is still shorter. I am convinced that, in order to form an accurate estimate of the practical results of this system, it would be necessary to visit the various constituencies which are affected by its operation, to compare by personal observation the various classes of the voting population, and to ascertain by personal intercourse their general character and sentiments. But it would be idle to attempt such a task without a knowledge of the language much greater than can be acquired in the course of a few months; and I must therefore premise that the remarks I am about to offer are the results of inquiries which, however carefully made, are much too limited to be satisfactory.

* Cowley, "Of Liberty."

page 38

In speaking of public questions, all men are disposed to represent their own opinion as the opinion of the public. It is not easy for a bystander, unacquainted with the crowd, to discriminate between public opinion and public prejudice. Whatever is most flimsy and superficial in opinion floats lightly on the surface of the national mind, and readily reveals itself to casual notice; the more weighty elements lie deep, and are not so quickly detected.

An astute student of human character has said that "in the capacities of mankind there are three degrees: one man understands things by means of his own natural endowments; another understands things when they are explained to him; and a third can neither understand them of himself, nor when they are explained to him by others. The first are rare and excellent, the second have their merit, but the last are wholly worthless."*

Mr. Andræ may, I think, congratulate himself that many of the most vociferous opponents to his Excellency's electoral system belong to this last-mentioned category; whose opinions, since there would appear to be good authority for regarding them as utterly worthless, need not occupy any portion of this Report. Elaborate objections, however, have been made to the law by persons whose natural acuteness entitles their opinion to be gravely considered. Before adverting to these objections in detail I must avow that the impression I have derived from the general result of my inquiries is, that the Law is not popular in this country, and that as yet it has taken no root in the national character.

The causes of the unpopularity of the Law are manifold, and most of them are quite independent of anything in the character of the Law itself. I have already adverted to the general unpopularity of the Constitution into which this Law is incorporated. It may be said that, apart from all other reasons, the Law is simply unpopular because it is part of an unpopular arrangement. But the unpopularity of that arrangement is the expression of feelings wholly uninfluenced by the nature of the Law, and, in this sense, any Law similarly introduced must have been equally unpopular.

I have no doubt that one of the objects with which the Law was framed in 1855, was to prevent the representation of Holstein in the common Legislative Council of the realm from being monopolized and abused by an overpowering and, in some respects, perhaps, a factious majority; to enable, in short, both the Government and the nation at largo to ascertain with accuracy the real opinions and interests of the Duchy, and to consult these opinions in their just and relative proportion. This was an object which deserved to be gratefully appreciated, both in the Kingdom and in the Duchy itself; but I doubt if it has been clearly recognized by the public at large.

The numerical majority in the Duchy, which is a numerical minority in the Monarchy, being already masters of political power, resolved (as all majorities do resolve in similar cases), to maintain their position, and succeeded in doing so, by rejecting the Constitution of 1855 in toto. This fact did not increase its popularity in the Kingdom.

There is another, and an obvious, source of opposition to this Law. The permanent Legislative Body of the Kingdom (called the Rigsdag), which represents all the local interests of Denmark Proper, consists of two Chambers, of which the First Chamber, or Folkething, is directly elected. The elections for the formation of this Chamber are conducted upon the old and general principle of comparative majority, in a way precisely similar to that which is followed in England. Consequently there are

* "The Prince,"cap, xxii.

page 39 coexisting in Denmark, side by side, and in simultaneous operation, two electoral systems constructed upon the most opposite principles; and as the body of interests and opinions brought into representation by the old system of comparative majority is much the most numerous of the two, and as this body is always in operation, and always in active expression, whereas the other is only occasionally brought together, it follows that the old majorities, whose monopoly is menaced by the possibility of any extension of the hostile system, being already in that happy position which is said to be nine-tenths of the law, are able, as they are certainly eager, to control opinion in favour of their own interests. Here, as elsewhere, public interests must follow—

"The ancient rule, the good old plan,
That those should keep who have the power,
And those should take who can."

If Mr. Andræ's system could have been uniformly applied to the voting population of the whole realm, these dominant local majorities would have been dissolved at a touch into their constituent elements, and reduced to their legitimate values. It is only under such conditions as these (which do not exist) that the practical popularity of the Law could be fairly tested.

As it is, Mr. Andræ himself has publicly admitted, with some natural bitterness, that his Law is generally ridiculed as an "absurd law."* I believe that this is the fact. The Law is much ridiculed, but little criticised. I have heard it described as a ludicrous Law, but I have been quite unable to discover, from inquiry or observation, the grounds upon which this epithet is applied; and I must confess that my own sense of the ludicrous is inadequate to appreciate the justice of its application. I have also heard it described as an unintelligible Law, but not by persons who have honestly exercised their intelligence in the examination of it. And I have heard it described as an impracticable Law, an opinion which seems to me confuted by the fact that it has been in practice for eight years, without any flaw having been brought to light in its machinery.

It has been gravely asserted, however, in an able and influential organ of the public press, that the Law does not in practice attain the ends to which it is directed in theory, and that it affords no virtual guarantee for the representation of majorities and minorities in just and adequate proportion. This is a serious charge, and if it were fully established it would involve a decisive condemnation of the whole Law as being, in point of practical legislation, a complete failure. I shall, therefore, proceed to exemplify clearly the arguments with which this charge is supported, by a problem that has been elaborately prepared, and triumphantly put forward by the most intelligent and energetic of Mr. Andræ's political opponents. This problem, indeed, concentrates in very close compass, and illustrates in very plausible form, the whole gist of objection.

Let us suppose (it is said) that, in conformity with Mr. Andræ's system, three representatives are to be elected by a constituency of 600 voters. This may be supposed to be the case, for instance, in the district of Lolland-Falster. Let it be further supposed that the candidates are five in number, VIZ., A, B, C, D, and E, representing, of course, different political parties. Again, let it be supposed that, out of the whole body of electors (consisting of 600) 299 voters record their votes in favour of A, B, and D, in the order here given; that 200 voters record their votes in favour

* See the "Landsthing Tidende,"account of the Debate of June 5, 1853.

See the Note giving the electoral districts.

page 40 of A, C, and B, in the order here given, and 101 voters in favour of A, C, and E, in the order here given. The voting lists will then be composed as follows:—
No. 1. No. 2. No. 3.
299 Votes. 200 Votes. 101 Votes.
A A A
B C C
D B E

The President now opens the elections by dividing the total number of the electors by the total number of members to be elected, and, the quotient having been found to be 200, he proceeds to draw the votes from the urn.

A appears first on the first list as the candidate most approved by the concurrent choice of 299 voters. Consequently A, being found in possession of 99 votes in excess of the necessary quotient, is declared duly elected. The name of A is then cancelled from this list, and, therewith, the 200 votes which makes up the quotient in virtue of which A is elected. B, as being second in the choice of the 299 voters, now moves up to the head of the list, and takes possession of the 99 votes which remain. The first list will, therefore, stand thus :—

Mathematical equation

And, this list being exhausted, the President proceeds to the second. Here, again, A is found first on the list, and is accordingly cancelled. But, A's quotient having been already withdrawn from the first list, the removal of A from the second list does not in this case remove with him the number of votes again recorded in his favour; for to these votes A has no further claim, since he is no longer a candidate. C now moves up to the head of the list, and taking the place of A, and coming into possession of the 200 votes which have been set free by A's election, he attains the necessary quotient, and is consequently elected. The second list will, therefore, stand thus:—

Mathematical equation

A third candidate, however, remains to be elected in order to complete the representation. And, 499 votes being already out of the urn, it is not possible that this remaining candidate should obtain the full quotient contemplated in sections 22 and 23. The case foreseen and provided for in section 24 now happens, and the President proceeds to act in respect of the third list in accordance with the terms of this clause. A is again found page 41 first on the list, and cancelled. C, then moving to the head of the list, is also cancelled; and E, thus obtaining one vote more than the half of the quotient, is declared elected. The whole result is, therefore, the election of A, C, and E, instead of the election of A, C, and B. But as B was second in the choice of 299 voters, as well as being third in the choice of 200, whereas E was only third on the choice of 101 voters, this result is obviously unjust and inaccurate.

Now it must be confessed that this problem is very skilfully conceived and very plausibly worked out to a reductio ad absurdum. It will not, however, bear serious examination, for it rests upon two improbabilities (the one political, the other mathematical) so enormous as virtually to amount to a double impossibility.

In the first place, it presupposes at the outset, as a necessary condition, a political combination which is plainly preposterous. It is not conceivable that each political party at an election should vote for its opponents. Even admitting (and this must be granted is a great admission) that it is probable, or possible, that an entire constituency should be unanimous to a man in favour of one candidate, and yet nevertheless be so morselled and subdivided in opinion that this singularly favoured candidate represents the suffrages of no less than five opposed political parties, yet it is obviously all but impossible to suppose that the party whose 200 votes stand on the second list should agree with C's opponents on the first list in favour of A and B, and also with B's opponents in the third list in favour of A and C; or that the party which opposes B in favour of E should, nevertheless, join B's party in voting for A and C; whilst the party that opposes C and E in favour of B should, nevertheless, join C's party and E's party in voting for C and A. In short, an impartial examination of these hypothetical voting lists must, I think, result in the conviction that they represent an impossible political combination, cleverly conceived to trump up a case for disingenuous criticism, and plausibly imposed upon the credulity of the unwary.

In the next place, the arithmetical combination upon which this problem rests involves an improbability even immeasurably greater than the first; for, in order to admit the possibility of such a combination we must suppose that, although the voting papers are taken at haphazard from the urn, the whole number of the 299 voting papers which make up the first list, and the whole number of the 200 voting papers which make up the second list, shall have been drawn out in due order and succession before a single voting paper of those 201 which make up the third list shall have found its way into the hand of the President;* for if a single one of these last should come out before the two preceding lists have been exhausted, the combination which is required by the problem to displace B will have been rendered impossible.

This problem is so plausible, at first sight; it moreover embodies, in a form so palpable and precise, the only serious objections which I have seen urged against the electoral system of Mr. Andræ, and it raises between the system and its opponents an issue so direct,—that I have deemed it due to a just consideration of the subject to take the liberty of submitting it as it here stands to the notice of Mr. Andræ himself, so as, before expressing my own opinion, to be able to modify or to fortify it by reference to that of his Excellency.

I am thus enabled, by the courtesy of Mr. Andræ, to add to the fore

* This may be very easily tried on a small scale by reducing the numbers in their relative proportion, say to sixty, when the quotient will fee twenty.

page 42 going remarks the substance of a calculation made by him with reference to this particular point, of which his Excellency has kindly communicated to me the general result; and I think. Sir, that this result is conclusive.
The relative probability or improbability of 600 voting papers leaving the urn (from which they are drawn at hazard) in the precise order represented in the problem above stated being obviously a question to which the answer must depend upon a calculation of chances, Mr. Andræ (whose eminence as a mathematician is undisputed, even by his most bitter political opponents) has been at the pains to make such a calculation, and the rough result of it I will endeavour to express in his own words, so nearly as I can recollect them:—

"If,"said his Excellency, "this law of mine had already been in operation over the whole of Europe (including Turkey) for a period of 10,000 years, and if the elections in every part of Europe to which the law was applied were to take place, not every one, or three, or seven years, but every week in regular repetition, these elections throughout Europe, at the rate of a general European election per week, would still have to go on for more than a thousand times the period of years already stated, that is to say, for more than a thousand times ten thousand years, before the chances would be equal that the voting papers should come out of the urn in the order required to form the basis of this problem. Although, therefore, the supposed combination is, mathematically speaking, only an enormous improbability, yet, practically speaking, it is absolutely impossible."

To sum up the result of the foregoing inquiry into the mechanical operation of the Electoral Law of 1855, it appears, firstly, that the most ingenious and elaborately devised combination of objections to the electoral mechanism of Mr. Andræ's system is fixed upon two postulates, the one political, the other mathematical, of which the first is preposterous, and the second impossible. Secondly, that the utmost ingenuity of artifice is only able to erect upon a basis, thus enormous in its unsubstantiality, an hypothesis minute in its material import, of injustice to a single candidate out of three, in a single district out of all. Can as much be affirmed of any other existing electoral system ?

In this Report, which has already, I fear, greatly exceeded its legitimate limits, no more need be said as to the practicability of the Law, and the accuracy of its mechanical operation.

Other and perhaps yet more important considerations, however, are involved in the questions of what are its political results in this country, and how far it may be applicable to other European communities.

These considerations are hardly within the province to which the present remarks must be confined; for they raise an infinite number of collateral and secondary inquiries, which cannot be followed out without bringing the inquirer into a disquisition upon the necessity and value of Government by party, as well as upon the nature of the various answers which may be returned to the paramount practical question of, "How is the Queen's Government to be carried on?"

I may mention, however, that, on lately referring to some of these topics in conversation with a Danish gentleman well acquainted with the political life of this country, I was assured that, in the discussion and settlement of great public questions by the Supreme Council of the realm, no disinclination is found to exist upon the part of representative minorities to combine and concur in the formation of a judicial majority for the decision of what is expedient.

I may also mention that I have been assured by Mr. Andræ that, in his opinion, the general standard of representative character supplied by this page 43 Law is the best and highest in the country; and that although he does not consider that a sufficient time has yet elapsed whereby to test the effects of the Law upon the constituencies themselves, he is nevertheless of opinion that, under its operation, the character of the voter as a class has improved and is improving. I have every reason to believe, moreover, that bribery is almost unknown to the constituencies for the Rigsraad. It appears to me, however, that the permission contained in clause 18 of Mr. Andræ's Law, and which equally appears in Mr. Hare's scheme—to fill up the voting paper in private—might, under very conceivable circumstances, facilitate intimidation.

A full and complete investigation into the character and operation of this Law is a task which I should rejoice to see assumed by some person of known impartiality, capacity, and experience. For, whatever may be the character or the consequence of the Law, I venture to think that its existence is one of the most remarkable events in the history of representative institutions.

There is a saying of Lord Coke's, repeated by .Junius in reference to a matter of some importance in our own Parliamentary history, that "discretion, taken as it ought to be, is discernere per legem quid sit justum"*

I shall not presume, Sir, to strain the meaning of these words to fit a partial application. But some excuse for the great, and I fear undue, length to which this Report has now extended may, I hope, be found in the wish which I have felt to bring into notice those peculiar features of the Danish Electoral Law of 1855, the consideration of which may, perhaps, enable others more competent than myself to weigh the justice of the theory by the practice of the law, et discernere per legem quid sit justum.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

Robt. Lytton.

* Letters of Junius, lxviii., to Chief Justice Mansfield.