THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM. (Hansard, 22 March 1928)

§ LORD SOUTHWARK
had given Notice to ask His Majesty's Government whether in view of the great number of members of the House of Commons now elected who do not represent a majority of the votes polled, the Government will be willing to introduce, and pass this Session, a Bill which would abolish that great evil, by directing a second ballot to be held without cost to the candidate and with as small a cost as possible to the State or any other authority or person.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have some statistics here which show the result of the polling at the General Election of 1924. I find that 130 members of the House of Commons were returned by minority votes. They included 83 Conservative, 33 Labour and 8 Liberal members. Thus you have 21 per cent. of 615 M.P.'s who may be described as minority representatives. Of that last figure 414 were returned by a clear majority in single-member constituencies, 730 by a minority of votes, 596 32 were unopposed, and then there are the Universities and other double-member constituencies. Let me say at once that I have no Party object in view in asking this Question, and in placing before your Lordships my suggestion for curing what I consider to be a great and dangerous defect in our electoral system. I hope your Lordships will not consider my proposals to be of a Party character, but that you will regard them as practical common-sense proposals of an entirely non-Party character. I have put this Question to the Government in the belief that there is a very real and genuine desire on the part of the country, and especially on the part of your Lordships, to remedy the present most unsatisfactory and, as I think, most dangerous electoral system. My special reasons for pressing this Question upon the Government at the present time are these:—that the majority, and not the minority, shall represent the constituency, that the Act shall be in force before the next General Election, and further, that it shall be in operation before an extended franchise is voted to women.
The process of calling the second ballot which I suggest is this. If the candidate who is at the top of the poll has polled fewer than half the votes recorded at the election the returning officer will at once call a second ballot. All but the two top candidates will be struck off the ballot paper, and the ballot will proceed with the two top candidates only; the remaining candidates, however many there may be, will drop out. They will have no grievance, because there will have been no interference with liberty of speech, and no stifling of discussion. All the candidates will have passed through the whole routine in connection with the election, they will have had the help of their Party organisations and the circulation of their addresses, they will have had the help of canvassers, they will have had public meetings, and they will have enjoyed every privilege which every other candidate enjoyed. But, as they have not sufficiently impressed their views on the electors, their names will not appear on the ballot paper again, and they cannot say that any injustice is done to them. They will have had their fight; let them live to fight another day.

§ LORD DARYNGTON
Would the noble Lord say on which day the second ballot would take place?

§ LORD SOUTHWARK
The day I should like is the earliest possible day after the poll cards and ballot papers have been printed. The second ballot election would be what I may call a non-fighting election; no meetings would be held, and there would be no time and no chance for manœuvring, because I should hope that the returning officer would be the responsible man. With regard to the expenses of the second ballot, I suggest that there should be no additional expenses for the candidates, who would have no control over the ballot, and there should be no excuse for the necessary work being improperly or inefficiently done. The State would pay all the expenses, which would be very trifling, because they would consist, as far as I can see, only of the cost of printing the poll cards and the ballot papers.
I do not wish to trouble the House with unnecessary details, but I thought it desirable to show with some fulness how simple the second ballot is, because I can imagine opponents of this system saying that it is unworkable, and that I have put it forward without thinking out the details. There is nothing unworkable in it, in my opinion, and, if noble Lords think it is unworkable, I shall be glad if they would explain how it is so. The second ballot would be over and finished with in less than a week, and, with expedition, in two or three days. The clerks at the polling booths could be instructed, when they are employed for the first ballot, about the chance of the second ballot, and told to reserve themselves until such-and-such a day to see whether they were wanted again. Of course, I quite understand it is no good putting this scheme before some noble Lords because they have evidently made up their minds that they prefer the present system. But the present system is not a sound state of affairs. You might have in one constituency with 10,000 voters ten candidates, and it would be possible under the present system for a member to be returned with 1,050 votes. Is not that a ridiculous state of things? I see that my noble friend Lord Jessel, who is an old electioneering hand, laughs at that.

§ LORD JESSEL
I only thought that the candidate would be the first past the post anyhow.

§ LORD SOUTHWARK
That is under the present system. Under my scheme you would not have a man sitting in Parliament unless he had polled a majority of the votes recorded at the election. I am putting forward this proposal not as a matter of Party interest; I have thought only of the interest of the nation. I have not bothered to consider whether Conservatives or Liberals or Labour would get the best of it, because, if you look at it in that way, while you may get the best of it this time, the next time you may get the worst of it. I think my noble friend Lord Younger expressed himself as very strongly in favour of an alteration of the present system, but he did not exactly see how it could be brought about. As I told your Lordships when I had the pleasure of addressing the House for a few moments some days ago, I thought it was a very simple matter and if nobody else made a practical suggestion I would try to make one myself. That is what I am doing now. I suggest that the Government should consider the matter and say what objection there is to the adoption of a policy of this sort at a time when it is proposed to increase the register, not by a very small number of ladies but by a great many. We can see exactly how the present system is working and that it is unsatisfactory. If my remedy is not good enough perhaps noble Lords will suggest something better. If there is anything in my suggestion, I have no selfish feelings about it at all, and I present my views to the Government for them to work upon. They may take full credit for it themselves if, after all, it turns out to be a good suggestion. I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Paper.

§ LORD JESSEL
My Lords, I am sure your Lordships have been extremely interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Southwark. I congratulate him upon his single-minded opinions and upon the views which he has put forward in no Party spirit. He has referred to me as one experienced in electioneering. I plead guilty to the crime because I have fought no fewer than six Parliamentary contests, not always with 599 success. On only one of the four occasions when I was elected was I returned by a majority of the electors in the Division. In these days with the extended franchise it is very difficult—and the reason is obvious in a way—to obtain a majority of the electors in a Division.

§ LORD SOUTHWARK
My Lords, I have not said a majority of those on the register. I said a majority of those who voted at the election. I had no idea of suggesting that the elected member should have a majority of the voters on the register; nothing of the sort. My suggestion is that he shall have a majority of those who poll. I suggest that when it is found that the man at the top has not polled a majority of the votes cast in the election it shall bring about a second election.

§ LORD JESSEL
If the candidate at the top gets a majority of those who voted, the noble Lord means?

§ LORD SOUTHWARK
Yes.

§ LORD JESSEL
I admit that there is a great deal of difference. At the same time, the noble Lord was good enough to say later on that if there was an electorate of 10,000 and ten candidates were put forward, the one who received 1,050 votes and headed the poll with that figure would be elected under the present system. I do not see why he should be debarred in those circumstances from being elected if he is at the head of the poll. Let me deal for a moment with the suggested machinery. In the first place, there are to be no meetings. That seems to me to be a little awkward, because the whole of the circumstances will have changed. If there are only to be two candidates the whole atmosphere of an election will be perfectly different from that in which the original election was fought. Then there is the question of expense. It will mean tremendous expense. The noble Lord has limited it to the printing of the poll cards. But, after all, the electors need some instruction, and it will be very difficult for them if they receive simply a bald poll card with two names upon it Again, can you possibly prohibit public meetings? How are you to prohibit, public meetings in these days for such an important purpose as the selection of a Member of Parliament for a constituency? The noble Lord said, of 600 course, that the expense should be borne by the State.

§ LORD SOUTHWARK
Yes.

§ LORD JESSEL
But that includes not only the printing of the poll cards, but the paying of the poll clerks, the fees of the returning officers and the postage.

§ LORD SOUTHWARK
The State would bear that.

§ LORD JESSEL
I say it would include also the postage of the particular poll cards. However that may be, I really do not think that should be an expense to the nation, which is not exactly overburdened with wealth although some people seem to think it is. At the present time it would be almost impossible, I think, to call upon a constituency to vote without, as I say, any literature, any public meetings or things of that kind. If I may repeat myself, the whole atmosphere would be changed. My other objection is that there might easily be (in deed, it has occurred in other countries) all sort of groups before the first election. That is a thing from which up to now we have been singularly free in this country. Although it seems a very simple matter indeed to put forward this proposal, it would lead, I think, to complications which I am sure many members of your Lordships' House would view with considerable apprehension. This system has been tried in other countries and it has not been successful, and though our present system has grave de fects, I think it leads to a clear majority on one side or the other. It is better that any Government should have a distinct majority, otherwise on any system of proportional representation or alternative representation the group system would come about, which would lead Governments of the present day, which are so liable to influence from constituencies as it is, to do nothing at all. For those reasons I hope that your Lordships, though quite alive to the fact that in some cases a member does not represent a majority of his constituents or even a majority of those voting, will not be influenced by the eloquent speech of the noble Lord and will not agree that it is desirable to change the present system.

§ LORD DESBOROUGH
My Lords, my noble friend opposite has asked a very simple Question which I hope I shall be 601 able to deal with in a very simple mariner. He asks what the intention of His Majesty's Government is regarding what is generally known as the second ballot. I am not sure whether my noble friend is aware that this question of the second ballot was very fully discussed less than a year ago on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Burnham, who is now in India. I have seen few Motions of that character with less support. When the subject was fully discussed I do not think there was one noble Lord who really gave the second ballot, I will not say enthusiastic support but any support at all excepting of a most modified character—that it might be, on the whole, the better of a choice of two evils. One noble Lord who supported the Motion said that it was merely the least evil of a choice of evils.
On the present occasion, the Question refers only to a second ballot. I have been at some trouble to find out the history of the second ballot in other countries. It has been tried already in a large number of countries. It has been tried in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Rumania, and even in Russia; it has been tried in Serbia, Switzerland, New Zealand and New South Wales; and all those countries who have tried it have given it up. I do not think that even my noble friend opposite will think, after this somewhat melancholy history of the second ballot in other countries, that His Majesty's present advisers are in the least likely in the present Session of Parliament, without a very long inquiry, suddenly to take up the second ballot.

§ LORD SOUTHWARK
The ballot I have been talking about is a patent new ballot.

§ LORD DESBOROUGH
I do not know whether all these countries adopted a patent ballot or not, but they adopted what is called the second ballot, and unanimously, with the exception of France, they gave it up. France has got it in a very modified form, and it was, I think, only used once last year.

§ LORD ARNOLD
Only for the Senate.

§ LORD DESBOROUGH
Of course they have a form of proportional representation but my noble friend is only now talking of the second ballot. We discussed 602 it very fully a year ago. At the last General Election it is perfectly true that in 121 elections out of 224 there were three-cornered fights, and no absolute majority was secured. My noble friend's cure for this is to have the turmoil of another contested election immediately after the first one. When every single soul in the country, man, woman and child, is only too glad to have got over it he would plunge the whole country again into the turmoil of another contested election in order to get what he is not the least sure of getting—a majority of those who voted. Last year my noble friend Lord Burnham had a Motion, to which I replied, to make voting compulsory. Supposing people are so averse from voting once, is my noble friend likely to get them to vote a second time after they have been happily relieved from their original duties? It is very unlikely that you will be able to stir up sufficient enthusiasm a second time to get all your myrmidons together and get people to vote a second time.
Supposing you have a three-cornered fight. There are three Parties, presumably more or less equal. One gets a majority. Then you have the other two Parties more or less equal. Say they are Conservative and Labour, and the Liberal is at the top. The whole situation is then altered. You will now have the two Parties, Labour and Conservative, coalescing in order to vote against the Liberal, who is at the top, otherwise that person will be triumphant again. I think one must consider the amount of log-rolling that would inevitably give rise to. I have quoted most of the countries of Europe in which this system has been tried and given up, and that was one of the reasons. A distinguished French politician said that under this system the man who got in by a majority of the various Parties would be a slave of minorities.
Considering that your Lordships gave this so very little support a year ago when it was discussed, I do not think I need go into the machinery of the question, but I should like to say one word about the expense which my noble friend treated in such a very light manner. I believe the returning officer's expenses at a contested election average £540. Under this new blessed system we are 603 going to have that expense a second time. My noble friend says that the expenses of the candidates are to be paid, so that the expense of a second contested election will become a very serious sum indeed to the Government. When we consider that there would probably be two or three hundred elections of this kind, it will be seen how great the total cost would be to the State. My noble friend is very generous. He asked whether His Majesty's Government will introduce and pass this Session a Bill which will direct a second ballot to be held, without cost to the candidate, 604 and with as small a cost as possible to the State, or any other authority or person. I am fully justified in replying that His Majesty's Government have suggested, and suggested more than once, that during the present Session they have no intention of bringing about any great alteration in the electoral system of this country, and if they had such an intention, I very much doubt whether it would take the direction my noble friend wishes of a second ballot.