SOUTH ISLAND SEATS-

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 212, 8 September 1927, Page 10

SOUTH ISLAND SEATS-

FIXED NUMBER SUGGESTED.

POPULATION DIFFICULTY.

UNWIELDY ELECTORATES.

DEPUTATION TO MR. COATES. ("By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. The South Island members of Parliament discussed with the Prime Minister this morning the question of representation. Mr. T. K. Sidey (Dunedin South) said he realised that New Zealand should be looked on as a whole, but one could not get away from natural conditions. Even if there was Only one Representation Commission for New Zealand there would always be the island boundaries. When the Legislative Council Act, providing for elections, was passed, it was proposed that there should be two electorates in the North and two in the South. Another aspect was that the South Island was so mountainous that it was incapable of such dose settlement as the North. Ths continual development of the present electoral system would result in the South Island electorates becoming so large as to be unworkable. One of the commissioners had expressed the opinion that this expansion should cease and a fixed number of seats be given to the South Island. The deputation's suggestion was that the number of South Island constituencies be fixed at thirty, while the Xorth Island would continue to get representation on an increasing scale in proportion to its population. The South Island position would fix the-quota. As time went on it Would mean an increase in representation, though, as the North became more closely settled,, this tendency would decline. Assuming that the North continued to increase at the same rate, or in the last decade it would have double the South Island population, which, on the deputation's scheme, would mean sixty North Island and thirty South Island seats.

If nothing was done, said- Mr. Sidey, the South Island would, be down to twenty-five seats. When New Zealand's population was one-third of the present total there were ninety-one members in Parliament. That was in the period 1881-00, after which the total was reduced to seventy, and ten years later it was raised to seventy-six. Since then the population had nearly doubled.

Mr. Coates: I don't think the population was their concern, so much as 'communication, in those days. .',;*,,

Mr. Sidey added that Canada had been working on the system he proposed since 1867. The South Island members considered it was not too late to legislate.

The Prime Minuter replied that he had discussed the representation question with the Hon. A. D. McLeod, Electoral Minister, and it was possible that the Government might ask for more time for the Legislature Bill, now before the House, so that the matter might be further discussed. He realised that difficulty waa likely to arise in the South if the population development in the North continue, and although it was against his principle to separate. New Zealand into parts, he did hot like,. either,, any principle which. ignored equal representation.

Mr. Sidey: Our proposal .does not do that. .'- 1~ "■'•;" i

Mr. Coates: No, but if the population drifted back to the- South: and you wanted more members, yon would be in the same position as the North island is now. .•--•.

He recognised that some electorates were growing inconveniently large, and he remembered that the same difficulty of access once prevailed iu the Nort" when communications were difficult. -