and composite State there are political groups to which the liberty of self-government (limited by agreements as to common concerns) applies, not only as a right claimed by the group itself, but as a wisdom in creating a State machinery which will correspond in its sections to those communal unities through which the individual mind finds an ever-widening kinship and co-operation, and a never-failing inspiration to upright and strenuous endeavour.

Finally we come to the supreme authority of the complete State which in this country may remain as it is now, or become a body upon which the Dominions and the Colonies are represented. The creation of the latter body must mean that the Dominions and Colonies are prepared to accept financial obligations imposed upon them, and to submit to other encroachments in the amount of sovereignty which they now enjoy. This, before the war, and still less in consequence of it, they show no inclination to do. The Imperial representative body is more likely to remain a purely consultative body, meeting apart from parliaments and at regular intervals, confined to passing resolutions which will be nothing more than recommendations to the parliaments of the States concerned. A more rigid Imperial State than that would be fatal to imperial unity. The only possible or desirable form of Empire is one of self-governing States kept together by the most flexible bonds of historical co-operation, and of common interest.

So far from Socialism disrupting such a group of banded States, its principles compel it to strive to keep them together. A self-governing India in the fellowship of the British Commonwealth would have as much liberty as an India cut off into an inde

pendent State, and it would reduce the sources from which world conflicts might arise. The only question is: What is to be the spirit of that Commonwealth ? If it is to be a military union of domination, no political wisdom can preserve it, because it itself would not be in accordance with political wisdom. If it is the forerunner and the beginning of a world federation of States, more complete in its unity than any League of Nations can be, political wisdom will guide it to its magnificent destiny. The spoils of past conquests can be made the foundations of a world Federation when democracy becomes the inheritor of the spoils. Nor is Socialism compelled, by being true to itself, to refuse responsibility for the weaker peoples known as the native races. Not only do they occupy lands, the products of which are necessary for the enjoyment of other peoples and for world industry, but they themselves are human and come within the scope of our ideas of both justice and mercy. Capitalism regards them, as it regards white labour, as mere instruments for making profits, for the life and wellbeing of whom it has no responsibility. But whilst white labour can protect itself against capitalist materialism, native labour cannot. The communal economics of Socialism do protect the native, because these economics establish between those who enjoy products and those who supply them a responsible relationship. Only under a Socialist regime can the idea underlying the mandates supposed to be issued by the League of Nations be fully carried out, and the economic and industrial contacts which nature imposes upon the peoples of the highly developed and the primitive States be supplemented by political protection and tutelage. When the Socialist view of human inter-relationship and obligation

becomes more widespread, the citizen of the mightier States will understand that the highest form in which unchallengeable power can be exercised is to do justice with tender consideration for those who have no redress if any State cares to do them wrong.

DEMOCRACY AND ELECTIONS

66

The Imperial Parliament which will retain ultimate sovereignty will represent citizens, and its constituencies will therefore continue to be civic groups. The critics of this kind of constituency call it, in one way quite accurately, but when used for their special purpose, quite inaccurately, a geographical area. Recent developments in constituency making, especially the last redistribution, has destroyed even the geographical" area to a great extent, and has established the "mathematical " area. The true description of our present kind of constituency is a number of citizens grouped not into any units of government (though that was a consideration) or administration, not into "geographical" areas (though that, too, was a consideration), but into batches of, as near as possible (at the time of distribution), 70,000. This is subversive to corporate political action. It turns the body of electors into a disorganized crowd and breaks the unity between the local governing groups and Parliament. Electors are thus left with no communal guidance, the constituency in which they are included has no meaning to them. They are encouraged to regard a Parliamentary election as something apart from the administration of the town, the country, the communal group, and if this may appear to be a subtile and intangible considera

tion, it is, nevertheless, of considerable psychological importance to those who take the view that the sense of national responsibility can spring only from a sense of local community. The mathematical constituency has no appeal to make to the communal mind. It is purely artificial, has no historical background, and can have none. The constituency should be restored to the local governing unit sufficiently populous to be a basis of representation, and mathematical calculations to equalize the value of each vote should come in only to decide the number of members which each constituency can claim.*

This means the destruction of the single member constituency which was a very natural expediency adopted when electoral registers grew in size, and the expense of a contest over a large area became heavy. A limitation in election expenses and the payment of part of them from the public purse, as is now done, makes it practicable to work the larger area, and there is no reason now why local governing units like the city and the county, returning numbers of members in accordance with population, should not become constituencies again. The members returned will represent the area, not corners or bits of the area, and thus will be preserved the representation of self-administrative units.

Were this done, we should have to decide how candidates are to be run, whether individually or on a party list; whether electors are to have one

* In the House of Commons to-day the members for constituencies in counties like Lancashire and Yorkshire with a strong historic sense, preserve a distinct unity even though divided politically. The expression "the Lancashire" or "the Yorkshire Members" is more than a geographical expression. It indicates a union of interest which I have known to manifest itself frequently in both debates and divisions.

vote or as many votes as there are members to be elected; whether election is to depend upon quotas or on majorities; how quotas are to be fixed.

s;

In the world of representative and elected institutions to-day all these systems are being tried. Some are convenient in working like our own single member constituency, but not satisfactory in effect; some give accurate mathematical results, but have a deadening influence on political interest, both in and out of Parliament. Every system of voting, like every human invention, has its drawbacks. The best theoretical system would give free choice to individual voters and yet recognize the existence of political organization; it would not be expensive to candidates it would protect minorities in the enjoyment of representation while testing whether they were of a nature entitled to representation; it would return a Parliament so constituted that it would not only be a mathematically exact reflection of public opinion but a working machine which in its acts reflects the will of the nation. The two last, though generally regarded as one and the same thing, particularly by those who favour Proportional Representation, are quite distinct. The aim of representation is not to reproduce a reflection of every school of opinion on a scale of about one-twenty-four-thousandth the size of its following in the country, but to produce a working will representing them blended into a poli tical creative force. Our system of election up to the war was perhaps as illogical as any in the world, and was open to more theoretical objections than any other, and yet in its actual working it gave results which corresponded to the requirements of good government. It tested minorities and then gave them representation; it was comparatively cheap;