ghtful construction of districts
as will economize the votes of the party in power by giving it
small majorities in a large number of districts, and coop up the
opposing party with overwhelming majorities in a large number of
districts. This may involve a very distortionate and uncomely
"scientific" boundary, and the joining together of distant and
unrelated localities into a single district; such was the case in
the famous original act of Governor Gerry, of Massachusetts, whence
the practice obtained its amphibian name.[6] But it is not always
necessary that districts be cut into distortionate shapes in order
to accomplish these unjust results. (pp. 49, 50.)

He illustrates a gerrymander which actually made one Democratic vote
equal to five Republican votes. We have quoted this description of the
methods of the gerrymander not so much because the evil has attained any
magnitude in Australia as because it offers a warning of the probable
result of adopting the single-membered district system for our Federal
legislature.

With enlarged or grouped electorates the periodical revision of
boundaries would be entirely obviated, because the size of the
electorate may be kept constant, and the number of representatives
varied. Under such a system all unfairness would disappear, and the
gerrymander would be impossible. Representation would automatically
follow the movements of population.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Bryce, "The American Commonwealth," vol ii, p 325

[5] Bryce, "The American Commonwealth," vol. ii., note on p. 81.

[6] Governor Gerry contrived an electorate which resembled a salamander
in shape.

CHAPTER VI.

THE HARE SYSTEM OF PROPORTIONAL DELEGATION.

The single transferable vote, generally known as the Hare system, was
first invented by a Danish statesman, M. Andrae, and was used for the
election of a portion of the "Rigsraad" in 1855. In 1857 Mr. Thomas
Hare, barrister-at-law, published it independently in England in a
pamphlet on "The Machinery of Representation." This formed the basis of
the scheme elaborated in his "Election of Representatives," which
appeared in 1859.

He proposed to abolish all geographical boundaries by constituting the
whole of the United Kingdom one electorate for the return of the 654
members of the House of Commons. Each member was to be elected by an
equal unanimous number of electors. The method of election was therefore