I do not give any weight to the supposed impracticability of Mr. Hare’s scheme because it is new.  Of course it cannot be put in practice till it is old.  A great change of this sort happily cannot be sudden; a free people cannot be confused by new institutions which they do not understand, for they will not adopt them till they understand them.  But if Mr. Hare’s plan would accomplish what its friends say, or half what they say, it would be worth working for, if it were not adopted till the year 1966.  We ought incessantly to popularise the principle by writing; and, what is better than writing, small preliminary bits of experiment.  There is so much that is wearisome and detestable in all other election machineries, that I well understand, and wish I could share, the sense of relief with which the believers in this scheme throw aside all their trammels, and look to an almost ideal future when this captivating plan is carried.

Mr. Hare’s scheme cannot be satisfactorily discussed in the elaborate form in which he presents it.  No common person readily apprehends all the details in which, with loving care, he has embodied it.  He was so anxious to prove what could be done, that he has confused most people as to what it is.  I have heard a man say, “He never could remember it two days running”.  But the difficulty which I feel is fundamental, and wholly independent of detail.

There are two modes in which constituencies may be made.  First, the law may make them, as in England and almost everywhere:  the law may say such and such qualifications shall give a vote for constituency X; those who have that qualification shall be constituency X. These are what we may call compulsory constituencies, and we know all about them.  Or, secondly, the law may leave the electors themselves to make them.  The law may say all the adult males of a country shall vote, or those males who can read and write, or those who have 50 pounds a year, or any persons any way defined, and then leave those voters to group themselves as they like.  Suppose there were 658,000 voters to elect the House of Commons; it is possible for the legislature to say, “We do not care how you combine.  On a given day let each set of persons give notice in what group they mean to vote; if every voter gives notice, and every one looks to make the most of his vote, each group will have just 1000.  But the law shall not make this necessary—­it shall take the 658 most numerous groups, no matter whether they have 2000, or 1000, or 900, or 800 votes—­the most numerous groups, whatever their number may be; and these shall be the constituencies of the nation.”  These are voluntary constituencies, if I may so call them; the simplest kind of voluntary constituencies.  Mr. Hare proposes a far more complex kind; but to show the merits and demerits of the voluntary principle the simplest form is much the best.