tional well-being which alone can lead to the safety of a progressive
nation.

Proportional representation was for long talked of as a device for
representing minorities. It is only in recent years that the real scope
of the reform has been recognised. By no other means than the adoption
of the single transferable vote can the rule of the majority obtain.
The fundamental principle of proportional representation is that
majorities must rule, but that minorities shall be adequately
represented. An intelligent minority of representatives has great
weight and influence. Its voice can be heard. It can fully and truly
express the views of the voters it represents. It can watch the
majority and keep it straight. These clear rights of the minority are
denied by the use of the multiple vote. It has also been asked--Can a
Government be as strong as it needs to be when--besides the organized
Ministerial party and the recognised Opposition--there may be a larger
number of independent members than at present who may vote either way?
It is quite possible for a Government to be too strong, and this is
especially dangerous in Australia, where there are so many of what are
known as optional functions of government undertaken and administered
by the Ministry of the day, resting on a majority in the Legislature.
To maintain this ascendancy concessions are made to the personal
interests of members or to local or class interests of their
constituencies at the cost of the whole country.

When introducing proportional representation into the Belgian Chamber
the Prime Minister (M. Bernhaert) spoke well and forcibly on the
subject of a strong Government:--

I, who have the honour of speaking to you to-day in the name of the
Government and who have at my back the strongest majority that was ever
known in Belgium, owe it to truth to say that our opinions have not a
corresponding preponderance in the country; and I believe that, if that
majority were always correctly expressed, we should gain in stability
what we might lose in apparent strength. Gentlemen, in the actual state
of things, to whom belongs the Government of the country? It belongs to
some two or three thousand electors, who assuredly are neither the best
nor the most intelligent, who turn the scale at each of our scrutin de
liste elections. I see to the right and to the left two large
armies--Catholics and Liberals--of force almost equal, whom nothing
would tempt to desert their