WCP1328

21, Bolton Street.

Piccadilly, W.

May 11 1871

Dear Sir

Mrs Fawcett¹ has been good enough to show me some articles letters from you on the subject of Proportional Representation. I am rejoiced to find we have so distinguished an adherent, and I take the liberty of writing to you on what I consider to be by far the greatest of political questions, because it is desirable that the friends of the movement should know all which is going on.

[2] I abstain from any discussion as to what may be abstractedly the best move of assigning alternative votes, as I feel that we can never hope to carry any measure unless we can devise some simple, rough and ready method of directing the returning officer what he is to do, such as one can get an average member of Parliament to understand. My main object is to mention my own proposal which I have put into a draughted² will, and which I expounded at the conferences on the subject in 1868 in the Reform League Rooms.³

[3] Every one feels the difficulty of assigning a vote given say in Aberdeen to a candidate standing say for Dover; these may be fraud,⁴ and it would be very difficult to get on the search of such a fraud, so I have come to the conclusion that we must make our first step in a more finished area.

My proposal then is that at each decennial census the number of members forming the House of Commons should be assigned each ably [?] according to population to each county, just as in the united states they are assigned to each state. That Borough and county voters [4] should be thrown into [one word illeg.] and that Hare's⁵ system of voting with certain modifications, should be applied in the case of all such constituencies where the number of members to be returned should amount to more than two. That, except perhaps in the case of London, care should be taken that not more than say 12 members should be returned for any one constituency, and to secure this end that all borough populations numerous enough to return 3 or more members should be treated as separate constituencies. Thus Sivenport would return some 10 members, Portsmouth 3, Sheffield 5, and so on.