The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1913. THE SECOND BALLOT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 29, 3 February 1913, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1913. THE SECOND BALLOT.

For the cause that laelea aasistonoe, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in ihe distance, And the good that toe oan do.

The working .of the system of eeoond ballots in Jvew Zealand k, generally ■regarded ac unsatisfactory, and the election at Blayney, New South Wales, laet week, has produced results which certainly do not indicate that thie eyetem ensures a clear and decisive expresekmof public opinion upon a national issue. Mr Beeby, a member -of the Ministry, resigned his place in the Caiunet and hia seat in the Legislature because he refused to submit to the absolute domination of the Labour caucus. He etood for re-election as an Independent, and was opposed by Mr Wiihington, Liberal, and Mr Johnson, Labour. All the forces of the Labour party were used against him. At the first ballot Mr Withingiton polled 1,79!) votes, Mr Becby 1,157, Mr Johnson 1,121. According to the eecond ballot rule, the candidate lowest on the poll (Mr Johnson) had to step out, and the electipn. was fought out again between the two survivors. This ..time Mr Beeby polled 2,244 votes, as against Mr Withington's 2,108. Mr Beeby was declared elected. Now it is pointed out that this result does not prove that Mr Beeby pot-Beeses the confidence of a majority of the electors, •because at the first ballot the votes against him numbered 2,920. Ho never reversed that finding; for at the second ballot the votee cast for him numbered only 2,214j although the total number of votes ,at the second ballot exceeded by 300 tlvoso who .went to the polls at the first election. Tbo. viotory was the result of party divieione and combina-tiona rather than a. straight-oat declaration by tie electors in favour of a.ny clearly defined ee,t of political principles. Mr Beeby resigned as a protest against the caucus system, but before the eecond ballot be gave a pledge ±o support the Labour Ministry from which he had resigned, and so nullified the entire purpose for which the appeal to the electors was initiated.

Many of the eecond ballots in New Zealand displayed similar results, nota.hly Grey Lynn, \rhcre" the Hon. George Fowldis, with an overwhelming majority at the first ballot, was defeated at the eecond through the Conservative vote being turned over to an extreme Labourcandidate. In Germany this has happened frequently, with disastrous consequences t-o the Social Democrats. At the election of 1907 they headed the poll in 44 constituencies where less than an absolute majority was eecuxed, but only succeeded, in retaining the lead, upon the eecond ballot, at 11. In 46 constituencies they beKTeeoond place, but only unproved their Tcoirdition- <upon a second ballot" m tfcree constituencies. Their failure wae attributable entirely ■to a combination against Social Democracy effected eobsequent to the first poll between otherwise antagonkfcic parties. Similar results have attended the working-of the-Second Ballot in Austria and Bplgiumythe operation of the system in tha latter country being deemed to unsatisfactory t-ha-t it hae been abolished. In Belgium the Clericals were aometfmee supported by the liberate and sometimes by the Labour party, mainly because of antagonisms between these two sections of the Democratic parties. The party of reaction, although in a minority, was thereby enabled to rule the country by the operation of an electoral system specially devised to ensure an- absolute majority.

In France unnatural combinations of political parties at second ballots have occurred frequently, and have been denounced by many prominent statesmen and writers. M. Yves Ouyot, an exMinister, asserts that "the second ballots give rise to detestable bargainings which obliterate all political sense in the elections." M. Raymond Poincare, a senator and a former Minister (ex-Premier, Pre-sident-Elect of France), condemns the system of second ballots in equally forcible language. " It will be of no use," he says, " to replace one kind of constituency by another if we do not, at the same time, suppress the gamble of the majority system and the jobbery of the second ballots." The Commission dv Suffrage Universel. ;■- parliamentary committee appointed by the Chamber of Deputies, in a report issued in 1907, declared that " the abolition of the second ballots, with the bargainings to which they give rii*". will not be the least of the advantages of the npw system (pro: port kraal representation X" This serious defect in the working of the second ballet when there are more than two parties in a. country, is pointed -ont by Hx J. JL. Sumpiieye ia iia jtbh

cently published work on "Proportional Representation." .He shews that "the largest party in the State, if its voting strength is evenly distributed, may be at the mercy of hostile combinations at the second ballots, unless it is so large as to command a majority of votes throughout the country, and when three parties have entered the political arena it, rarely hap-, pens that any one of them is in this favourable position. That being bo, the new element of uncertainty associated with the system of second ballots may yield results which are further removed from the true representation of the "whole electorate -than the results of the first ballots." ■•..."' . " - .'-,-■

In the failure of the second ballet to achieve its intended purpose,, tte- are afforded another example of the essential difference between theory and practice. It may be contended that, after all, the final verdict in the second ballot more accurately represents the wishes "df the electors than the chance majority of a candidate whose place at the head of the poll is due merely to the splitting of votes-, but the Teal question we have to consider is not the relative disadvantages of two systems of election which "have proved defective, but whether some more perfect, system cannot be devised.