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Excerpt: ...defended it most vigorously, on the ground that the party as a whole had a right to determine which of its members should be elected. In the absence of the provision referred to it might happen that some candidate would be elected in preference to one who was more generally approved of by the party. This may be made clear by an example given by M. Van den Heuvel himself. A, B, C and D are candidates. Suppose that the party is strong enough to return three candidates, but no more, and that five-sixths of the party are in favour of candidates A, B and C, whilst the minority, one-sixth, are ardently in favour of candidate D. It will be necessary that the majority of the party (the five-sixths) should cleverly divide their votes equally between the candidates A, B and C in order to prevent the possibility of candidate D being elected by a small minority of the party. A little reflection will show that in the absence of any such provision the popular candidate of the majority, say A, might attract too large a proportion of the votes, thereby allowing D to pass B or C. Each provision of the Belgian system has been most carefully thought out, and, if it strengthens the hands of party organizations, it does so in order to secure the representation of the party by the candidates most generally approved. It may, however, be pointed out that had the single transferable vote been used, the candidates A, B and C, who, in M. Van den Heuvel's example, were supported by five-sixths of the party, would have been sure of election; there would have been no need to have conferred a special privilege upon the party organizations. The limited and cumulative vote. The French Proportional Representation League, which, impressed with the simplicity of the Belgian system, desired to introduce it into France, refrained from advocating the adoption of the case de tete, and suggested that the order in which candidates should be declared elected on each list should be...

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