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must be officially certified. Each elector has as many votes as there are candidates to be elected. No cumulation of votes is permitted, but provision is made for marking preferences. In counting the ballots the judges are obliged to ascertain the number of votes cast for each party and for each candidate, as well as to determine the electoral quotient. Each party elects as many representatives as it has received electoral quotients. If there are places left over after this process they are assigned to the party having the largest vote."

Miss Catherine H. Spence, who has been an advocate of proportional representation in Australia since the first publication of Thomas Hare's method a generation ago, presented a slightly modified form of the original system. "Briefly, the single transferable vote may be thus described. The districts having been made large enough to return eight or ten members, the voter is allowed to vote for as many men as he would like to see in Parliament, but the vote only counts for one, and that the first man on his list who needs his vote and can use it. It is like the subscriber sending a list of six books to the circulating library by a messenger-he having only a right to a single book. He writes the names of the books in the order of his preference, and the first on the list which can be got the messenger brings. He does not expect more than one book, and in like manner, though the voter may have marked with the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, the six names of men he approves of on his voting paper, his vote only tells for one man." At the conclusion of Miss Spence's address a test ballot was taken, the audience voting for six out of fourteen names presented on a ticket. The result made a great impression upon all, especially upon the members of the press.

Dr. Montague R. Leverson, in his address, "The Proxy System as a Means of Real Representation," presented a method which he had embodied in a draft for a constitution for Colorado in 1875, but which he has now temporarily abandoned for a simpler form of proportional representation, on account of the necessity of a secret ballot. Briefly stated, the proxy system consists in making the whole country over into a political joint-stock company, in which each citizen has one share. The citizen may give his proxy to a representative who in Congress votes not his personal vote as at present, but the number of proxies he holds.

Mr. Alfred Cridge's address, "Majority Myths," was composed mainly of statistics showing how wholly inadequate the present system is as a means of attaining a government of the people. The address, when printed in full, will furnish valuable material for the use of reformers. Mr. Cridge advocates the Hare system of propor tional representation.

Lieutenant-Colonel T. Currie sought to present in his address such a refinement of the list system that there would be no waste. One point is to fix, before election, the number of votes necessary to elect a representative, which makes the membership in the Legislature vary according to the total vote of different elections. He would further, to obviate the waste of votes in unfilled quotas, allow the voter a secondary choice in candidates in other districts than his own. Hence, if there be in two districts or more minorities insufficient when taken by themselves to fill a quota, and thus secure representation, they may when united accomplish their desire. The address contained a number of other new points.

Mr. William H. Gove presented to the congress the system which bears his own name, and which has become familiar to the people of Massachusetts. It is a combination of the Hare and the Swiss system. Lists are prepared as in the Swiss, but only one vote is given; and if the man voted for does not need the vote it is transferred to the man on the list whom he has specified before the election. This method has the merit of great simplicity, though it lacks the flexibility of the Swiss system. The Gove system was one of those presented by the congress for the consideration of the people.

Dr. L. B. Tuckerman presented two methods of selecting officers and committees in conventions and other meetings. These methods when published in detail will prove of great value. The Cleveland method of choosing committeemen has been in use for some time among the labor organizations of Cleveland, Ohio, and would be of incalculable value in Congress at Washington.

In presenting the subject of the initiative and referendum, Mr. W. D. McCrackan took the ground that representatives would not always be faithful to their trust. If a certain number of citizens could by petition compel the Legislature to submit a law for the popular approval of the voters, more exact legislation would follow. While giving all possible credit to proportional representation, he still thought that direct legislation of the people would be desirable. Stoughton Cooley took the ground that if a majority of the legislators represented a majority of the people, as they certainly would under proportional representation, the referendum would be superfluous. While the referendum might in some respects be more exact, the waste of time would more than neutralize the gain. Representative government is simply a division of political labor and has the same merit that the division of industrial labor has.

On Saturday the American Proportional Representation League was formed. The Hon. William Dudley Foulke, of Richmond, Ind., was chosen president. Stoughton Cooley, of 22 Fifth Avenue, Chicago,

was made secretary and treasurer. An executive committee composed of one member from each State and territory of the United States and province of Canada is provided for in the constitution, but the committee has not been completed as yet. Any person in the United States or Canada endorsing the declaration of principles may become a member. The dues are one dollar per year, and entitle the member to the publications of the society. A bulletin is to be issued as often as the funds will permit, probably once a month. The committee presented two bills embodying the principle of proportional representation, the Gove and the Swiss systems. There was no hostility to either, but it was thought best to offer both. The object of the society "is to promote the reform of legislative assemblies by abandoning the present system of electing single representatives from limited territorial districts by a majority or plurality vote, and by substituting the following:

"I. All representatives shall be elected at large, on a general ticket, either without district divisions or in districts as large as practicable. 2. The election shall be in such form that the respective parties, or political groups, shall secure representation in proportion to the number of votes cast by them, respectively." Chicago.

STOUGHTON COOLEY.

THE BETTERMENT CLAUSE of the LONDON IMPROVEMENT BILL. It is of more than passing interest to the problem of municipal taxation to note the tendency which, considerably developed in America and in Germany, has recently re-asserted itself with marked force in the projected change of the system of municipal taxation in London.* It is the principle that the burden of taxation should be distributed amongst those elements of the community who derive palpable material advantages from municipal activity. As illusory in its effects, and as unjust in its application as this principle may become when carried into most fields of municipal activity, its justification in the domain of highway improvements is hardly to be questioned.

The act in question is known as "An Act to Empower the London County Council to Make New Streets and Street Improvements, etc." (56 and 57 Vict. Session, 1893.)† The measure is based upon the principle that these improvements "will be effected out of public funds, charged over the whole country, and will or may increase in value or ⚫ See the valuable essay of Dr. Victor Rosewater in Columbia College Studies in Political Science upon "Special Assessments; a Study in Municipal Finance." + The history of this bill has been a peculiar one. Passed by the House of Commons, the Betterment Clause was thrown out by the Lords. Reconsidered in this form by the Lower House, the Betterment Clause was reinstated. A second time the House of Lords rejected it. The matter stands thus at present constituting a real grievance of the Lower against the Upper House.

benefit lands in the neighborhood of the improvements, which will not be acquired for the purpose thereof, and it is reasonable that provision should be made under which in respect or in consideration of such increased value or benefit a charge should be placed on such lands." It is then stipulated that all lands within the area of the "Limits of Deviation" shall be liable to have such an improvement charge placed upon them. For this purpose the London County Council is directed to undertake an assessment of the adjacent property wherein a statement of the amount which "In the opinion of the Council will be the enhanced value or benefit derived or to be derived" by such lands. Provision is then made for the hearing of objections of property owners to such assessments, in which case an arbitrator appointed by the Local Government Board, who has the power of amending such assessments and whose decision shall be final. The charge upon the lands thus subjected to assessment is to be "three per centum per annum upon one-half of the amount which, in the opinion of the Council, will be the enhanced value of the benefits derived or to be derived by the said lands from the improvements.” The charges are to be paid by the freeholder of property.

Although this principle in its advanced form has been sanctioned only for the rebuilding of Vauxhall Bridge and the necessary rearrangement of adjacent streets, there can be no doubt that its acceptance for further highway improvements is assured, not merely for the purpose of defraying the costs of such improvements, but also to secure to the community at large at least a portion of the benefits which they, through their united action, have called into existence. Philadelphia.

LEO. S. ROWE.

THE NATIONAL PRISON ASSOCIATION.

The National Prison Association meeting for 1893 was held in Chicago in connection with the National and International Conferences of Charities and Correction, so that only three separate sessions were held. The first, on the evening of June 7, was devoted entirely to memorial addresses in honor of its deceased president, Gen. R. B. Hayes, who for ten years past has been president of its annual meetings.

Gen. R. Brinkerhoff, vice-president of the Association, made the opening and leading address, and was followed by a number of brief testimonials from other members.

On the morning of the eighth, a session was held to receive and consider the report from the Committee upon Prison Discipline, by its chairman, Captain James W. Pope, Superintendent of the U. S. Military Prison at Fort Leavenworth.

The report deprecated the use of any form of corporal punishment, or other physical torture, and maintained that such punishments hindered, rather than helped, in the maintenance of prison discipline, and advised progressive classification under the working system, with deprivation of privileges, as altogether preferable. The report was fully discussed by prison officers present, and was approved by a large preponderance of opinion.

On the morning of the ninth, a session was held to hear a report upon the convict labor troubles in the Mining Camps of Tennessee, by Dr. P. D. Sims, the chairman of the State Board of Health of that State.

On Saturday, the tenth, an excursion was made by the Association to Joliet, to visit the State penitentiary at that place.

The Association then adjourned to allow its members to accept an invitation of the International Conference of Charities and Correction, to become a part of its section upon "The Prevention and Repression of Crime, and the Punishment and Reformation of Criminals," which commenced its sessions June 12 and continued until June 18.

The next annual meeting of the National Prison Association will be held at St. Paul, Minn., commencing June 16, 1894, and will continue five days.

Gen. R. Brinkerhoff, of Ohio, was elected to succeed Gen. Hayes as president, and Rev. John L. Milligan, Chaplain of the Penitentiary at Allegheny, Pa., was elected secretary.

The following are the chairmen of the several standing committees for the coming year: Mr. Eugene Smith, New York City, Criminal Law Reform; Mr. P. Crowley, San Francisco, Cal., Police Force in Cities; Mr. Henry Walfer, Stillwater, Minn., Prison Discipline; Mr. Wm. M. F. Round, New York City, Discharged Prisoners; Dr. Walter Lindley, Whittier, Cal., Preventive and Reformatory Work; Dr. H. D. Wey, Elmira, N. Y., Work of the Prison Physician.

The Annual Report of the Association will contain, not only the proceedings of 1893, but also papers upon prison topics, presented by its members before the National and International Conferences of Charities and Correction, and can be procured from the secretary. Mansfield, O. R. BRINKERHOFF.

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