Note 34 — Chapter XVI · THE SECOND-CHAMBER PROBLEM[21]
Reading edition
Ramsay Muir, in Peers and Bureaucrats, has a suggestion for a second chamber that should not be ignored. He finds the evil of a popular chamber containing a large number of representatives from wieldy districts selected by pluralities merely to be that it makes government by party a necessity. The parties tend to form themselves into two great camps, with two great programs. The electorate has been driven to choose one program or the other, though if all shades of opinion could be examined some part of each program would not receive a majority of votes. Party discipline, however, becomes so strict that the first chamber can put through every part of the party program. The real need in the second chamber, he declares, is to secure members of independent views who can express their opinions freely without fear of the loss of their seat as a punishment for having been independent, and which will represent the different shades of opinion on the part of the electorate. He, therefore, advocates the selection of members of the second chamber by the method of proportional representation by the single transferable vote according to the Hare plan.
The difficulty with this proposal is that property interests as such are not represented except according to the numerical strength of property owners. In fact, Mr. Muir expressly repudiates any idea of creating a second chamber based upon an aristocracy or the middle class of income taxpayers. His plan might also be expected to involve a contest as to which chamber really represented the electorate. The second chamber as proposed by Mr. Muir would certainly be a “rival infallibility” and hopeless deadlocks might be expected. There would then be the usual American spectacle of bickering between the executive as represented by the executive council or cabinet of the first chamber, and the second chamber representing the electorate. On the whole the union of the executive and the legislative powers so much to be desired would be broken in upon.