Foreign News: HOW BRITISH ELECTIONS WORK

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Last week's general election meant as much to Britons as a combined election of President, House of Representatives and full Senate would mean to Americans. So far as the national government is concerned, a vote for a member of Parliament is a vote for the whole works.

In seven centuries of jurisdictional thrust and parry, the House of Commons has whittled away the executive prerogatives of the British monarchy, broken the House of Lords to the rank of a disregarded auxiliary, and concentrated in its own hands the two branches of government which the Constitution of the U.S. most carefully separates: executive and legislative. In Britain, the House of Commons is omnicompetent. By a simple majority vote, it makes changes in the unwritten British constitution, and expands or contracts the liberties of the British people. And as leader of the majority party in Parliament, the British Prime Minister wields executive powers equal to those of the President.

The Candidates. There are 625 seats in Commons (the U.S. House of Representatives has 435). Distribution: England 506, Wales 36, Scotland 71, Northern Ireland 12. Average number of voters in British constituencies: 60,000 (in U.S. congressional districts: 200,000). In the U.S., Representatives must be at least 25, Senators 30. Any British subject over 21, except judges, government officials and clergy, may stand for election if he can put up a deposit of £150 ($420). This deposit is returned if the candidate polls more than one-eighth of the total vote cast; all ten Communist candidates lost theirs last week.

There are no U.S.-style primaries in Britain. Instead, the candidates for the House of Commons are selected by central committees of their parties in London. Candidates must be "adopted" by local party associations, but this is usually a mere formality. Unlike U.S. Congressmen, who make much of their being home-town boys, British M.P.s need not live in the constituencies they represent, and usually don't. Last week a Welsh miner was Labor's candidate in an English farming constituency (he was trounced); Sir David Robertson, a London businessman, won a seat in a remote Scots Highland constituency. Even Winston Churchill, who is seldom seen in a kilt, represented a Scottish constituency from 1908 to 1922.

A party can virtually ensure that its leaders keep their seats by assigning them to "safe" (i.e., traditionally loyal) constituencies. Under such a system, for example, Dean Acheson would have to run for office; and the Democratic National Committee would likely run him in Boss Flynn's safest Bronx district, or in the surest Democratic part of the Deep South. Robert Taft would be given a safe Republican seat in Maine or Vermont.