The voting papers, and all the elements of the calculation,
would be placed in public repositories, accessible to all whom they
concerned; and if any one who had obtained the quota was not duly
returned it would be in his power easily to prove it.
These are the main provisions of the scheme. For a more minute
knowledge of its very simple machinery, I must refer to Mr. Hare's
Treatise on the Election of Representatives (a small volume
Published in 1859),* and to a pamphlet by Mr. Henry Fawcett (now
Professor of Political Economy in the University, of Cambridge),
published in 1860, and entitled Mr. Hare's Reform Bill simplified
and explained. This last is a very clear and concise exposition of the
plan, reduced to its simplest elements, by the omission of some of Mr.
Hare's original provisions, which, though in themselves beneficial,
we're thought to take more from the simplicity of the scheme than they
added to its practical usefulness. The more these works are studied
the stronger, I venture to predict, will be the impression of the
perfect feasibility of the scheme, and its transcendant advantages.
Such and so numerous are these, that, in my conviction, they place Mr.
Hare's plan among the very greatest improvements yet made in the
theory and practice of government.
* In a second edition, published recently, Mr. Hare has made
important improvements in some of the detailed provisions.
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