Proportional Representation | Page 7

main object of a General Election is not the creation of a legislature which shall give expression to the views of electors on public questions. "A General Election," says the Report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems,[4] "is in fact considered by a large portion of the electorate as practically a referendum on the question which of two Governments shall be returned to power." But were this interpretation of a General Election accepted it would destroy the grounds on which it is claimed that the decisions of the Commons in respect of legislation shall prevail "within the limit of a single Parliament." Some means should be available for controlling the Government in respect of its legislative proposals, and the history of the Unionist administrations of 1895-1906, during which the House of Lords failed to exercise any such control, demonstrated the need of a check upon the action of a House of Commons elected under present conditions. Mr. John M. Robertson, whose democratic leanings are not open to the least suspicion, has commented in this sense upon the lack of confidence in the representative character of the House of Commons. "Let me remind you," said he, "that the state of things in which the Progressive party can get in on a tidal movement of political feeling with a majority of 200, causes deep misgivings in the minds of many electors.... Those who desire an effective limitation of the power of the House of Lords and its ultimate abolition, are bound to offer to the great mass of prudent electors some measure of electoral reform which will give greater stability to the results of the polls, and will make the results at a General Election more in keeping with the actual balance of opinion in the country." [5] The preamble of the Parliament Bill itself implies that the decisions of the House of Commons may not always be in accordance with the national wishes. It foreshadows the creation of a new Second Chamber, and the only purpose which this chamber can serve is to make good the deficiencies of the First.
The fact that our electoral methods are so faulty that their results produce in the minds of many electors deep misgivings as to the representative character of the House of Commons must materially undermine the authority of that House. All who desire the final and complete triumph of representative institutions--a triumph that depends upon their success in meeting the demands made upon them--all who are anxious that the House of Commons shall not only maintain, but increase, the prestige that has hitherto been associated with it, must, in the face of possible constitutional developments, endeavour to strengthen its position by making it in fact, as it is in theory, fully representative of the nation. For Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's quotation from Burke is double-edged, and may be expressed thus: "the virtue, the spirit, the essence of the House of Commons departs as soon as it ceases to be the express image of the nation." Such a House cannot furnish an adequate basis of support for a Government. For the Government which issues from it will not command public confidence. The debates in the House in 1905, before the resignation of Mr. Balfour, bore testimony to the fact that the strength and power of a Government which, according to the theory of our constitution, depends upon the number of its supporters in the House of Commons, in reality rests upon its reputation with the country. There was quoted more than once with excellent effect this dictum of Sir William Anson: "Ministers are not only the servants of the Crown, they represent the public opinion of the United Kingdom. When they cease to impersonate public opinion they become a mere group of personages who must stand or fall by the prudence and success of their actions. They have to deal with disorders at home or hostile manifestations abroad; they would have to meet these with the knowledge that they had not the confidence or support of the country; and their opponents at home and abroad would know this too." [6] The strength and stability of a democratic Government thus depend upon its capacity to interpret the will of the country, and the support which the House of Commons can give is of value only to the extent to which that House reflects national opinion. The Commons, if it is to maintain unimpaired its predominant position in the constitution, must make good its claim to be the representative expression of the national will. The measures for which it makes itself responsible must have behind them that irresistible authority, the approval of the electorate. If then our electoral methods fail to yield a fully representative House, and if, in consequence, the House cannot satisfactorily fulfil its