THE ELECTORAL RETURNS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 309, 30 December 1922, Page 5

THE ELECTORAL RETURNS.

A VOTE OF CONFIDENCE. PR'S VERDICT. (From Our Special Oorreipoudent 1 LONDON, November 24. Mr. Bouar Law. in thanking the elec tore for their support, has declared that he regards them as having given him a vote of confidence. Mr. Law is, we know, on varied and on high authority, a "simple" man, and hie manner of description of the electoral returns tniarki of a certain simplicity. He may have got 344 supporters in |he House and only 271 against him. But he omit? to call our attention to the fact that if five million voters plumped for him, over eight and three-quarter million voted against him, that far from giving him a vote of confidence the country hag declared against him. * Whatever electoral colours one may Hy, one cannot assert that the results are in line with the declared views of th» voters who took the trouble to record their votes at the poll. * The protagonists of proportional representation have not been slow to draw the moral and isstic a statement that had its system been in u*p the result* would have been: — Conservative .... 2,">t> Instead of :U4 I-alMiur IHB .. .. 142 r.iheral 107 .. .. *i Nat. Liberal «7 .. .. 37 , lu<l. ami others... 17 .. .. 12 Hl.-> 61* i That ie to say in a proportional representation House the Conservatives would have had 256 votes and a united opposition—if that were conceivable —of 359. The Proportional Keprescnlation Society gives an interesting taMp showing that the Conservatives' M.IVs obtained on an average 18,000 votes. Labour 31.000 Liberal 42,000, Nat. Liberal I Lloyd Georgv) 31,000, and Independents 42,01)0. This, while it mar contain fallacies—for example. Labour contests the big populous urb«n area?, and therefore would tend to obtain big quotas—still the quota for Conservatives all over the country is co markedly inferior to the quota obtained on an average liy all the other members—it is. in fact, only one third—that the return of members to the present House is obviously not a tnie reflection of th<* declared will of the electorate.