WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 95, 23 April 1928, Page 19

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

PARTY SELECTION.

A PROTEST.

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, April 21

The "Evening Post" returns to the Reform party's method of nominating ctndidates for Parliament with a further protest agr;i inst the perpetual tenure jygtem. "If in the Reform party," it j«vß, "tenure of a seat in a triennial Parliament is to be regarded as a continuing and absolute title to party candidacy for the next Parliament, then ouch a system would be the opposite to that of Rejection ballot practised by the Labour party. A Labour member may, 0 f course, become a candidate without challenge, but the ballot machinery is there for the use of rival aspirants, and j g frequently operated. ... A system of machine politics that tends to" out of Parliament every man unadorned with a party label is bad enough. To create permanent proprietorship in the label woulfl be a further depreciation of the franchise, a depreciation against which we hope fV electors will rebel." Of course it is a* a matter of party discipline that the Reform party, to its very great advantage at the polls, does not allow its candidates to be selected promiscuously by the electors. Good Generalship.

To realise the efficacy of the methods employed by the Hon. A. D. McLeod, familiarly known as the "Minister of Elections." it is necessary to examine the results they bring about. At the general election of 1025, when the Coates Ministry scored a victory second only to the greatest of Mr. Seddon's triumphs at the polls. 671.971 valid votes were recorded. Of these 317.584 were cast for Reform candidates. 184,616 for Labour, 157,171 for Liberal, and 12,600 for Independent. Reform, that is, secured 47.3 per cent of the votes, Labour 27.5 per eent, Liberal 23.4 per cent and Independent 1.8 per cent. Reform, however, seemed 68 per cent of the European seats (552), Labour 17 per cent (13), and Liberal and Independent 15 per cent (11). The glaring disproportion in the distribution of the representation of the parties may be expressed in another way. It took only 6107 votes to return a Reform candidate while it took 14.201 votes to return a Labour candidate and 14,288 votes to return a Liberal or Independent candidate. Making Sure. In face of facts" like these the Minister of Elections, while he remains in office, surely cannot be expected to look with any favour upon a proposal to amend the electoral law. The Labour party, Indeed, is the only party that has definitely pledged itself to a progressive movement of this kind. The Liberal party just before the war, and, it must be feared, without realising what it was about, very nearly carried the second reading of a proportional representation bill introduced by Mr. Veitch; but the four years of "war-peace" in Parliament put anything of the kind out of mind, and no enthusiasm for such a measure has since been revived. The truth of the matter is that the average member »f the House of Representatives w inclined to look, with favour upon the system that has brought him to Parliament, and is suspicious of experiments that might make his seat less secure. The friends of Reform should pray that the "Minister of Elections" himself be seiied with an inspiration to give to the country, during his reign, an equitable system of representation. Rubbing Along. Mesnwhile the minor branches of the disunited Opposition are rubbing along in unimpressive fashion. The United party's organiser and general factotum, replying to some perfectly reasonable questions put to him by a correspondent of one of the local papers, tells the anxious inquirer that "he has neither the time nor the inclination to answer anonymous correspondents," but if the writer "will come out into the open" he will "endeavour to lighten his political darkness." A gentleman of such wide experience in political campaigning should have been able to make more capital than this out of his opportunity! Then in the Waimarino constituency another Liberal is in the field in opposition to Mr. R. W. Smith with the excuse that the sitting member is on friendly terms with members of the Reform party *nd is not emphatic in his repudiation of their wars.