very rarely has it failed to set up very leaderly
and distinguished men. It is worth while, therefore, to inquire how this
President is elected. He is neither elected directly by the people nor
appointed by any legislative body. He is chosen by a special college
elected by the people. This college exists to elect him; it meets,
elects him, and disperses. (I will not here go into the preliminary
complications that makes the election of a President follow upon a
preliminary election of two Presidential Candidates. The point I am
making here is that he is a specially selected man chosen _ad hoc_.) Is
there any reason why we should, not adopt this method in this new
necessity we are under of sending representatives, first, to the long
overdue and necessary Allied Council, then to the Peace Congress, and
then to the hoped-for Council of the League of Nations?

I am anxious here only to start for discussion the idea of an electoral
representation of the nations upon these three bodies that must in
succession set themselves to define, organize, and maintain the peace
of the world. I do not wish to complicate the question by any too
explicit advocacy of methods of election or the like. In the United
States this college which elects the President is elected on the same
register of voters as that which elects the Senate and Congress, and at
the same time. But I suppose if we are to give a popular mandate to the
three or five or twelve or twenty (or whatever number it is) men to whom
we are going to entrust our Empire's share in this great task of the
peace negotiations, it will be more decisive of the will of the whole
nation if the college that had to appoint them is elected at a special
election. I suppose that the great British common-weals over-seas, at
present not represented in Parliament, would also and separately at the
same time elect colleges to appoint their representatives. I suppose
there would be at least one Indian representative elected, perhaps by
some special electoral conference of Indian princes and leading men. The
chief defect of the American Presidential election is that as the old
single vote method of election is employed it has to be fought on purely
party lines. He is the select man of the Democratic half, or of the
Republican half of the nation. He is not the select man of the whole
nation. It would give a far more representative character to the
electoral college if it could be elected by fair modern