justifies the gerrymander?

The truth is that the present system has survived the passage from the
first stage of representation into the second, not because it does
justice to both parties, but because it has operated largely to prevent
the formation of more than two parties. It has, therefore, been a means
of giving effect to the central feature of representation, viz.: the
organization of public opinion into two definite lines of policy. But it
is a comparatively ineffective means, and it no longer suffices to
prevent sectional delegation in any of the democracies we have examined.
Besides, it is accompanied by a series of other evils, which in so far
as they lead to the suppression of responsible leadership, tend to the
degradation of public life. We propose now to consider the effect of the
reform in remedying these defects of the present system.

+Parties Not Represented in the Legislature in the Same Proportion as in
the Country.+--Representation under the present system is purely
arbitrary; the amount which each party secures is a matter of chance. If
a party with a majority in the whole country has a majority in each of
the electorates it will secure all the representation. On the other
hand, if it splits up its votes in each electorate, or even only in
those electorates where it has a majority, it may secure none at all.
Theoretically, then, any result is possible. The argument would lose its
force, however, if in practice the result usually came out about right.
But this seldom happens, and, speaking generally, two cases may be
distinguished: first, when parties are nearly equal, the minority is
almost as likely as the majority to return a majority of the
representatives, thus defeating the principle of majority rule; and,
second, when one party has a substantial majority, it generally sweeps
the board and annihilates the minority. A few examples will illustrate
these facts.

The 1895 election for the Imperial Parliament is analyzed by Sir John
Lubbock in the _Proportional Representation Review_. He shows that out
of 481 contested seats, the Liberals, with 1,800,000 votes were
entitled to 242, and the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, with
1,775,000 to 239, a majority of three seats for the Liberals. But the
Conservatives and Unionists actually returned 279, and the Liberals only
202, a majority of 77 seats. The Conservatives and Unionists obtained
also a majority of 75 of the uncontested seats, giving t