This is the sub-section that provides that members shall be elected on the system of the single non-transferable vote. The whole debate to my mind, so far, has shown what I said on the Second Reading to be true, that the decision to try to establish a system of election on the single non-transferable vote was taken first and that the arguments were found later. This is clear from the confused, limited and often contradictory case that has been made by the sponsors of the Bill. I propose to give just a few of the many examples of confusion and contradiction that are apparent.
In order to prove that P.R. has not worked satisfactorily in this country, the sponsors of this Bill have been arguing that P.R. has not worked in other countries. They have produced a series of examples from all over the world that have no relation to the kind of P.R. operated here. We have been told that there are some 300 varieties of P.R. and last night Senator Lenihan told us that no P.R. system in the world is like ours. Surely there is confusion and contradiction here. If, out of all the 300 systems, we have a unique one, it seems to be rather futile to spend so much time in this debate arguing that P.R. did not work in those other countries where it bears no relation to our own P.R. system. If the P.R. system here is unique, it seems to me it is wrong to suggest also that the P.R. system here is an English system. If the P.R. system which we have is, as Senator Lenihan tells us, unique, then it must be Irish.
Secondly, there is the fact that it was solemnly enshrined in our Constitution. I say that unique system was solemnly enshrined in our Constitution by referendum and all through this debate we are being told how important and solemn a thing it is for the people to decide an issue in a referendum. The people decided in the enactment of the Constitution that P.R. was to be the system of election and they decided, in doing so, that it was our Irish system.
Surely these are examples of inconsistency and, I suggest, waste of time. When I made the case on the Second Reading and illustrated how the straight vote system had not worked democratically in England or in Northern Ireland, the Minister in his reply suggested that if I thought that way, it would be advisable for me to go and lecture the English people on their system. That is very inconsistent on his part because we have been told by the sponsors and supporters of the Bill of all the wrong things that are happening in France and Italy and South America. If the Minister is to be consistent, it would seem to me that for us to suggest to his own Party that they should go on a lecture tour to tell the people of Italy and France about this subject would be just as relevant as that he should suggest that I make a tour of England.
I do not intend to make a tour of England or America. I am here as an Irish Senator and I shall do my duty, so far as I see it, in opposing the removal of P.R. here. I do not propose to concern myself with whether or not the English do wrong. I think they do, or it may be right for them, but it certainly is not right for us and I am going to confine my efforts, such as they are and limited as they are, to my own country.
As it happens, I do go to England quite a lot and I happen to know a number of political people. Strange to say, they are not Conservatives and they are not Labour. On several occasions, I have been asked to speak on the subject of P.R. in a certain constituency in England, but I refused to do so. I said it would be quite wrong for me to go to another country and start criticising their system of government which is a matter for themselves. I have gone to meetings there and listened to the speeches, but although I was several times asked to go on the platform and say a few words, I declined to do so, and, I think, rightly.
Another example of confusion—it may be due to seeing the same thing in different ways, which I suppose is quite human and natural—was this. Senator Mullins, in a very painstaking effort, traced the history of British elections since the beginning of the century. I was not quite sure what he was trying to prove, but, to my mind, he did prove that the straight voting system operated in England and which it is proposed to bring in here, eliminated small Parties and Independents, so that in Britain they are eventually left with only a Labour Party and a Tory Party and a negligible number of Liberals, in spite of the fact that the Liberals got a considerable number of votes. I do not think there is a single Independent in the House of Commons, unless those who are rebels from the two big Parties and who will inevitably vanish at the next election. A.P. Herbert recently put his name forward as an Independent candidate, but I heard him say on television that he was a realist and that he would be wasting his time going up, that his only chance was to go up as a candidate for one or other of the Parties. Therefore, he withdrew his candidature.
To my mind, Senator Mullins proved one thing—I do not know whether it was what he was trying to prove—and that it is that as a result of the single non-transferable vote, England had got just two big Parties, one completely Right and one completely Left. They have this swing from nationalisation to denationalisation, this swing from the public ownership of council houses to the enunciation that people should own their own houses. You have these amazing Right and Left swings which achieve anything but the stability we are told this type of vote would achieve here.
The sponsors of this Bill see nothing wrong in eliminating small Parties and Independents. They more or less blatantly said that. That is the difference between us and the supporters of this Bill and this sub-section. They see nothing wrong in that and we do. We think it is a most dangerous and undemocratic thing to wipe out small Parties and Independents.
As I am on the English system, I should like to revert once more to the effect the single vote has on the creation of safe seats. There is no doubt at all about it. This system creates a very large number of safe seats. It means, in practice, that a large number of the electorate never get a chance of doing anything about their representation, either Party representation or individual representation. It is well known both in the Tory Party and the Labour Party that people are allowed to have safe seats for life. The electors are reduced to rubber stamps.
Let us deal with the case of Northern Ireland. Ministers of all our Governments and their individual supporters have expended many words, hours and a lot of travel time in reviling the system which prevails in the North. On this question of safe seats, the position there is interesting. Senator Mullins usually does not attach much importance to this question of safe seats. He always rather questions the accuracy of the number of safe seats created by this form of voting. I should like to quote something already quoted from The Indivisible Island by Frank Gallagher, in which he says:
"In the ten local elections in urban areas since Partition, the average of uncontested seats in Northern Ireland from 1923 to 1955 was 59.6 per cent. The average in local elections..."
—which I presume will come here if this goes through——
"...in rural areas was the amazing percentage of 94.9 per cent., that is 95 seats in every 100 in the local government bodies in the rural areas never have been contested in almost a generation."
Can anybody say that is a good system? I agree with the strictures we have directed towards the system of government in Northern Ireland, but it is very inconsistent and blind to turn around now and say we will adopt that system, thereby cutting the ground from under all the arguments we have been using for so many years. It is really astonishing that such a proposal should be brought seriously forward and presented to us, as it has been, in such a way that we on this side are made to feel that we are resisting progress, stability and democracy. Once you establish the safe seat for any Party, it means, in effect, that the candidates for those seats are selected by the Party. You might as well not have the electorate at all. You might as well turn it over to the Party Whips.
There is another point which I do not think has been referred to. We are told that one of the most important things we shall have as a result of the single non-transferable vote is an obvious and clear alternative Government. I suggest that is not true at all. Unfortunately, wrong arguments in this case will come home to roost. The Government are taking a very serious and dangerous step in pushing this Bill through. They may have very red faces when the next election comes. They laugh at it now, but it is practically mathematically demonstrable that there may be an Opposition so small that it may not provide an alternative Government or a shadow Cabinet of Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries.
Suppose the Opposition were composed of 40 members or less, representing three or four different Parties, or at least two Parties, Labour and Fine Gael. Where will you get an alternative Government there? This whole thing was designed to do away with small Party Government and Coalition Government. The fact is that the only shadow alternative Government it will inevitably create is a Coalition Government. You would require about 20 to fill the ministerial positions and the positions of Parliamentary Secretaries, not to mention the Party Whips and other essential officials. This is one of the most dangerous things that will emerge. It will be too late when that happens, and it will not be any consolation for us to say that we told you so.
Finally, I should like to say I do not think our system of P.R. is perfect. We have been faced, as the sort of logical conclusion of supporting P.R., with having only one constituency in the whole country. We are not arguing that. We are not out-and-out proportionalists in a purely mathematical frame of mind. We stand for the system we have at present, with all its faults and limitations. We know it is not perfect, but we think it is the best thing. The Taoiseach himself said in the past that it is quite a good form of election. We think it is the best form of election and that the one now being proposed is a bad form of election, in itself, and very bad for this country.