The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-12 00:00:00

LICIT/IL

Tins Emma, SIMPSONriIIco. Marra Raw/rya Moe
Mb El/worthy. —DON C.4SAR DE HAZAN. Messrs. Yachter,
Jordan. aIA A. St. alnyn : Kral. Murray, and Minna Hotrods
and C. Led/reg.—ADO THE TWO AMTS. Mr. Widdloomb.

Trim EVENING, M ARAI EDDAU(7IITER.9 AND YOUNG HUS-
R A KIS —KAM K ItA LIM PR. THE StENs tTIONHAAT. Mews.
Thorne, James, Rbson, and TOMO( : Mesdames teaabornwah,
liughat, Newton, Weatheraby, tc.—•md A SUIT OS EVIRIHM.

HOLBORN.

THIS LIIVIRIO, MY TURN rrirat Mr. B• 111610; Mime
Foote and Unto.: —And FLYING SCUD. Mews. Novllla,
more, Blake, VAlstre, &c.: Mesdames F. Josepba, C. Saandrars,
Meads Foote. Mddes, Lembo; Itapacmd, &e.

BATTV."!IA.

Tan Itemires, MR CORSICAN DRUMMERS—After which
the Opening of the PANTOMIME, ending with the Grand Trans-
formation Scow. Mn.s fAne & Meta Jacob& —To couchette with
Till LAST LINK OF LOVE. Uha S. Miles.

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LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 12.

THERE is a great deal of amateur discussion
about " cumulative voting" going on just now.
It is doubtless invited by the professed wish of
the Government to please everybody with their
Reform Bill, a disposition which naturally invites
everyone to say what would please himself. There
is therefore an opportunity, which we are far from
saying is objectionable, for every doctrinaire to
advance his pet theory, filled with enthusiasm at
the possibility that perhaps some one may agree
with him, and that Mr. Dimmer,' may find in it a
constitutional principle unknown before. In the
case of cumulative voting a little preliminary dis-
cussion is doubly useful, because it unfortunately
is a word capable of a good many different mean-
ings. Some who use it apply it only to consti-
tuencies with three members, or " three-cornered
" constituencies." Sonic in these cases would give
to every man three votes, and some would give to
each only two votes, and some only one; hut others
would extend it to constituencies withonly two mem-
bera, allowing every voter to giveboth his votes to the
same candidate. Now, these ideas are so different
in their operation that it is very inconvenient to
class them all under the one phrase " cumulative
" voting," and it is desirable to spend a little
time in examining the distinctive peculiarities of
each.

There may, indeed, be laid down ono principle
which applies to all, and which will help us to
exclude some without further investigation. The
object of cumulative voting is to give a fair repre-
sentation to minorities. This may bo very reason-
able, but it must not he perverted into giving an
unfair representation to minorities. Any system
which would enable a minority to return more
than its legitimate share of representation would
bo manifestly and monstrously unjust. The worst
that can be said of the representation of the
majority only is that it prevents discussion within
the House by the minority, for it still leaves
the minority power to discuss outside the
House, and it only subjects the minority,
in the final vote, to the authority of numbers,
which must and ought to be the ultimate arbiter.
But if we were by any contrivance to give to a
minority a representation beyond its proportion,
we might in many cases have the final vote carried
by an actual minority of the whole electors in the
nation. For if the minority in the nation should
chance to he so distributed that it neutralized the
majority in a number of constituencies in which
separately it was the minority, while in the rest it
chanced to be the local majority, the result would
be that the real majority of the nation would be
outvoted—a result which it is plain the real
majority would submit to, in a new institution,
only until it was found out, and which, as soon as
found out, would be rectified by a rough and rapid
method. The majority may be very willing to
give the minority a hearing, but it certainly will
never consent to give it a new predominance, or
even suffer it to have an equality.
These suggestions will enable us at once to dis-
pose of any plea for cumulative voting in consti-
tuencies with only two members. Applied in
them, it would enable a fraction just exceeding
one-third of the constituency to neutralize the
opinions of the other two-thirds. For one-third,
by giving all their votes to one candidate, would
accumulate on him as many as the remaining two-
thirds could give to either of their two, and con-
sequently but one man over the one-third would
enable the minority to secure one representative
out of the two. The consequence might be that
in a hundred constituencies, having perhaps three
hundred thousand electors, the opinions of two
hundred thousand would be deprived of their
effect upon a division in the House of Com-
mons by the opinions of one hundred thou-
sand ; and if the one hundred thousand hap-
pened to have the barest majority in other consti-
tuencies, the policy of the country would be de-
cided in a way adverse to the wishes of the real
majority of the electors in it. No doubt this is
an extreme case. But, in a less degree, the same
result would follow in all instancys in which the
minority happened to range between one third and
one-half. And in every such case the majority of
the constituency would have to endure the
mortification of being practically blotted out of
the division list in the House of Commons when-
ever its op' . ns were at issue with those of the
local minority. But if it is hard fora minority to
be unrepresented at all in deliberation, it is
very much harder for a majority to be deprived
of effectual representation in voting ; and though
our existing system may bo full of anomalies
leading to the practical disfranchisement of majo-
rities, we shall do ill to augment and exacerbate
the dissatisfaction by constructing new ones.
The only case, then, in which the principle is
admissible is where the number of representatives