It became at one stroke a
representative body. It became, indeed, magnificently representative. It
became so representative that the politicians were drowned in a deluge
of votes. Every adult of either sex from pole to pole was given a vote,
and the world was divided into ten constituencies, which voted on the
same day by means of a simple modification of the world post. Membership
of the government, it was decided, must be for life, save in the
exceptional case of a recall; but the elections, which were held
quinquenially, were arranged to add fifty members on each occasion. The
method of proportional representation with one transferable vote was
adopted, and the voter might also write upon his voting paper in a
specially marked space, the name of any of his representatives that he
wished to recall. A ruler was recallable by as many votes as the quota
by which he had been elected, and the original members by as many votes
in any constituency as the returning quotas in the first election.
Upon these conditions the council submitted itself very cheerfully to
the suffrages of the world. None of its members were recalled, and its
fifty new associates, which included twenty-seven which it had seen fit
to recommend, were of an altogether too miscellaneous quality to disturb
the broad trend of its policy.
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