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special result looked for did not appear, there were vast "remote general results foreseen by no one. So, too, with recent changes. We had eloquently uttered warnings "that the delegates from the working classes would swamp "the House of Commons; and nearly everyone expected that, at any rate, a sprinkling of working-class members "would be chosen. Again all were wrong; the conspicuous "alteration looked for has not occurred."

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Similar remarks may be applied to France, where considerations of personal profit or loss had the greatest influence in determining the action of the parties with regard to the Scrutin de Liste. And yet there can be no example more instructive than the system which they followed, because it has always worked in a direction opposed to the purpose of those who had established it.

The Republican Left of the Constituent Assembly thought in 1848 to secure a majority maintaining the Scrutin de Liste in the Constitution. There never was a more cruel disappointment. The party came out decimated by the elections of 1849, losing many of its leaders, Lamartine among the rest, who had played such an eminent part in the establishment of the Republic, and who, when meditating on his own discomfiture, was led to call the Scrutin de Liste-le cas et le mensonge organisé-organised chance and falsehood. The elections of 1871, made by Scrutin de Liste, gave power to that Conservative majority which attempted the Monarchical restoration. Well, that majority thought it was providing for its own benefit in introducing into the Constitutional Law the uninominal vote, the immediate result of which was the dispersion of those very individuals who had given themselves so much trouble to establish it. Others lay down on the bed which they had prepared for themselves. Sic vos non vobis nidificatis, aves! Lately Gambetta thought the Scrutin de Liste would have smoothed his way to the dictatorship by giving him a subservient

majority all of one political colour. Had he not been overthrown before he carried out his pious design, we might possibly have witnessed another disappointment.

In Italy those who found their greatest hopes on Electoral Reform belong to the Radical party, which proclaims it as its own special property, and prepares itself to meet the contest with a bold front. How far that confidence is justified we cannot yet say. I have myself, up to the present time, fought in the ranks of the Moderate party, and at the coming elections I shall perform my duty at the post that may be assigned to me. But I dare not advance any prognostication. The substantial alterations in the electoral body; the want of political organization in the country; the state of transformation of political parties, which frequently appear on the scene with new programmes, and for whom a new era begins; the uncertainty whether the Clericals will or not take part in the elections, in the former case by their intervention greatly modifying the arrangements and the coalitions of parties; all these are elements which contribute to darken the veil which conceals the electoral urns from our sight. I abstain therefore from examining the question from this point of view, and I start from a more general platform.

The Scrutinio di Lista was part of the general project of Electoral Reform offered to Parliament by the present President of the Council of Ministers, Depretis. It was quite a new idea. It came out as a surprise, more unexpected by the public than the extension of the Franchise, for which, although there had not been popular agitation, there had been at least some movement, though limited to the cultured classes: a movement in which those had taken part who already possessed the right to vote, but to which those who had been hitherto excluded, and on whom it was desired to confer the right, had remained indifferent. Nothing had happened which could be likened to the

agitation preceding the Parliamentary Reform in England, an agitation which revealed a want that had deeply penetrated the national conscience. The eloquent pages written by Thomas Buckle in his History of Civilisation in England, to show that Governments do not resolve on great Legislative Reforms unless the whole nation imperiously claims them, cannot be applied to the Italian Electoral Reform. Therefore, although in Parliament an extension of the Franchise was deemed indispensable, a project of reform through which the electors were raised from 600,000 to 2,000,000, was approved by a strong majority indeed, but without any enthusiasm. The Scrutinio di Lista met with a reception quite unfavourable, and the Ministry was so struck with it that fearing lest this aversion should cause the whole law to fall through, they consented that this special clause should be struck out and reconsidered at a more propitious time. The opponents to the Scrutinio di Lista thought that such a suspension was equivalent to its rejection. It was on the contrary its salvation, for, when it first was brought up for discussion, it would have been sure to be negatived; by obtaining time it acquired partisans, it insinuated itself into people's minds, and on a second trial came out victorious. Signor Depretis, whose sincerity has sometimes been doubted by politicians, but never his parliamentary dexterity, affirmed what was quite true, when in the discussion he said that in a year the Scrutinio di Lista had gained ground. In fact the special law, in which it had been reproduced, approved by a considerable majority of the Chamber of Deputies, and again quite lately by the Senate, is now part of the Law of the Land, which will rule the general elections this autumn. I will now offer a short analysis of the law :-The 508 members are elected by 135 Constituencies, which, according to their extent, return 5, 4, 3, or 2 members respectively. In the Constituencies returning 5 members the elector writes on his voting paper

only 4 names. At the first Scrutinio those are elected who have obtained the great test number of votes, provided that number exceeds one-eighth of the registered electors. If that proportion is not attained a new ballot is held on a following day. It may easily be seen from this sketch that the Scrutinio di Lista lately adopted by Italy is not the classical Scrutin de Liste of the French school, but something between that and the uninominål voting paper. The circumscription of the Italian Constituencies does not coincide, except in a few cases, with that of the province which forms the unit of the French system, but corresponds in many cases with the three-cornered Constituencies of the English electoral system. I, for my part, consider this limitation of the Italian law very wise.

It has been rightly remarked in criticism of the uninominal Constituency that it establishes too narrow an area, and one where local mediocrity, municipal coteries, village-green interests and ideas, and personal considerations hold sway unopposed and prevail over political considerations in prompting and determining the Elections. All that is perfectly true, and quite sufficient in my opinion, to condemn uninominal Constituencies. Still one must guard against falling into the opposite error, bearing in mind the saying, incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim. The too narrow area must not be so excessively widened as to possibly deprive the elector of a sufficient knowledge of the candidate, and hence of the power of giving a conscientious vote. This consideration acquires greater importance in Italy from the extension of the Franchise which has been granted at the same time. In the first discussion in the French assembly, M. Dufaure, then Minister, observed that the country-folks go from the house to the fields, and from the fields to the house; all their existence revolving within that circle. In order therefore to render the electoral urn more accessible to them, the Elections, both

in Italy and in France take place on Sundays, the polling booths are, as much as possible multiplied, each Commune having one in France. In short, every possible facility is afforded for the exercise of the right to vote. Now by what logical argument can it be maintained that such men ought to vote with other districts, with which they have no connection, and for candidates whom they do not and cannot know, and that they ought also to share in the organization and preparation required in a large circumscription? This they practically cannot do. Some one then will do it for them. If they are not capable of making up a list with ten or twenty names, there will be some one who will hand them one ready-made. Who will undertake to do that? The Committees. Who will compose these Committees? If the electoral district is not so extensive as to prevent all healthy local influence, such as results from an unblemished reputation, a life spent for the welfare of the country, it may reasonably be hoped that at the head of these Committees will be found persons deserving of public esteem; but if the districts are so vast that those influences may be lost, then the field remains open to intriguers, professional agitators, traders in politics, and then we have a Caucus in the worst meaning of the word that is, not the regular organization of a party, but the prevalence of its most turbid and dangerous elements. Reybaud, in his Jérôme Paturot à la recherche de la meilleure des Républiques, which is a perfectly charming satire on the Utopias of French Radicalism, has depicted in lifelike colours the tyrannical ways in which the Committees were worked in the elections by Scrutin de Liste in 1848. In the recent discussion in the French Assembly, Gambetta endeavoured to ridicule the threats of that spectre, the fear of that occult power, that Electoral Vehmgericht of the Committees. But I believe that such a danger does really exist, and that the only way of pre

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