D.-The Convention votes to which a candidate shall become entitled under Rule C shall remain to him so long as he continues a candidate before the Convention, but in case no candidate shall have a majority of Convention votes reported from the districts, the Convention shall proceed to perfect a nomination under the following regulations: 1. The districts shall be called over, and the delegates from each shall report to the Convention the Convention votes of their district; first the vote or votes pledged by the popular home-voting to candidates who remain before the Convention, and next any vote or votes unpledged to candidates or freed by the withdrawal of candidates. 2. Convention votes shall become freed by the voluntary declination of candidates and by striking off the name of the candidate lowest on the list at each vote after the first. 3. Unpledged and freed Convention votes from a district, when less in number than the whole Convention vote of the district, shall be cast by the delegation therefrom or by a majority of them acting jointly; but when all the Convention votes from a district shall be unpledged, or shall become freed, each delegate therefrom may cast one vote separately, or have his vote separately reported. APPENDIX. PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT UPON LIMITED VOTING IN THREE-MEMBERED DISTRICTS. In the House of Lords, July 30, 1867. The reform bill being under consideration Lord CAIRNS moved an amendment, to come in after clause eight of the bill, as follows: "At any contested election for any county or borough represented by three members no person shall vote for more than two candidates." In supporting this amendment he explained that there would be at least eleven constituencies to which the plan proposed by it would be at once applicable, and he foresaw that if there should be a further alteration in the distribution of electoral power the great probability was that such alteration would go in the direction of increasing those three-cornered constituencies. This consideration made him more anxious that some proposition of this kind should be adopted. He then proceeded at length to present the reasons which had occurred to him in favor of his amendment, and to answer and repel certain objections which might be urged against it. A debate followed, in which the amendment was supported by Earl Russell, Earl Spencer, Earl Stanhope, Earl Cowper, the Earl of Carnarvon, Lord Houghton, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe; and was opposed on behalf of the administration by the Earl of Malmesbury and the Duke of Marlborough. Lord Denman suggested that the proposition should be made the subject of a separate bill. Upon a division the vote stood: Lord CAIRNS then proposed the following additional clause: "At a contested election for the city of London no person shall vote for more than three candidates." The clause was agreed to. The London Times the day following contained an elaborate and powerful editorial in support of the proposition and in commendation of the action taken by the House of Lords. It declared that that House had "by a single vote covered many errors and justified the opinions of its warmest admirers. Such a triumph of reason and truth," it continued, "may well startle us, accustomed as we have been during this session to the rapid growth of convictions." "The idea of modifying our electoral machinery so as to secure in three-membered constituencies the proportionate representation of both the great divisions of party has made its way by its inherent justice. The verdict of the lords has been decisive, but we do not believe that it in any degree outstrips the independent opinion of the House of Commons, still less that it is at variance with the deliberate judgment of the country. It has been everywhere confessed that the adoption in one form or another of the principle of cumulative voting was essential to maintain the character of our institutions, and that through it, and through it alone, could the redistribution of electoral power (which all prescient statesmen regard as inevitable) be reconciled with the preservation of our representative government." "The arguments on behalf of the proposal advanced by Lord Cairns were overwhelming. He himself treated the question in the succinct dialectic style, of which he is a master, and the chain of his reasoning was perfect. But he did not stand alone. In fact every one who took part in the discussion, with the exception of the ministers who represented the Government, was on his side. It mattered not whether, like Lord Russell, they spoke from the front bench of the Opposition, or like Lord Stanhope and Lord Shrewsbury, they avowed themselves faithful supporters of the administration and resolute to do nothing which should interfere with the success of the bill; whether, like Lord Spencer and Lord Cowper, they expressed the views of independent Liberals; like Lord Carnarvon, they argued from the position of a |