ISO THB BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

objections to any proposal of this nature. The wealthy and

aristocratic have already great governmental influence, both in

the House of Lords and elsewhere; it would be impossible to

persuade the majority to give up their vote to such a group.

The theoretical and practical objections to Government by an

aristocracy of the educated have already been noted; and who

could devise an examination which should show who were fit to

govern? The idea of a restricted franchise has ceased to be practical

politics: modern opponents of democracy do not adopt it; rather,

they allow the whole people to vote on certain occasions, taking

care that the vote shall have no real effect on the powers that

rule. It is interesting to read Bagehot's attack on the idea of

votes for all adults, the "ultra-democratic theory", as he calls it.

He paints a lively and not altogether untrue picture of the type

of Parliament which will be elected by universal suffrage.

Events, however, have shown him to have neglected one great

truth—that the extension of the vote to the working-classes, and

particularly to working-class women, would oblige Parliament,

as never before, to give attention to social questions—that is,

to the lives and everyday needs of the people.

(3) The number of Members of each party in the Commons
does not properly represent the numerical strength of the
parties in the country; in particular, minorities are under-
represented. The truth of this criticism can be demonstrated by
simple arithmetic. If in one constituency a Labour candidate
gets 15,000 votes, a Conservative 12,000 and a Liberal 8,000,
then a Labour M.P. is elected though there is a non-Labour
majority. Suppose that in each of three constituencies 40,000
votes are cast and that of the total 120,000 only 50,000 are
Conservative; yet if 22,000 of these have been cast in one
constituency, 21,000 in another and 9,000. in the third, the
Conservatives, possessing only five-twelfths of the votes in the
whole area will win two-thirds of the seats. The result over
the whole country can be illustrated from recent elections,
fc 1924 there were just over 8,000,000 Conservative votes,