They are like the Western judge in the murder trial who
said that if only they got a man hanged for this abominable crime, he
wouldn't make a pedantic fuss about the question of _which_ man. They
are like the plain, straightforward promoter who became impatient with
maps and planned a railway across Switzerland by drawing a straight line
with a ruler across Jungfrau and Matterhorn and glacier and gorge. Or
else they are like Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., who knows too well
what would happen to him.
Now let us consider what would be the necessary consequences of the
establishment of Proportional Representation in such a community as
Great Britain--that is to say, the redistribution of the country into
great constituencies such as London or Ulster or Wessex or South Wales,
each returning a score or more of members, and the establishment of
voting by the single transferable vote. The first, immediate, most
desirable result would be the disappearance of the undistinguished party
candidate; he would vanish altogether. He would be no more seen.
Proportional Representation would not give him the ghost of a chance.
The very young man of good family, the subsidised barrister, the
respectable nobody, the rich supporter of the party would be ousted by
known men.
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