CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 100, 30 April 1945, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

PREFERENTIAL VOTING

To the Editor Dr. Mcllwraith's remarks on proportional representation are misleading. He would seem to regard proportional representation and preferential voting as practically the same thing, whereas they are

really two different things. He trots out the now well-worn anti-propor-tionalist bogy of the alleged ill-effects of proportional representation in Germany. There is some excuse for the popular ignorance on this subject, but those who undertake to instruct the public on it should first make sure of their facts; and the fact is that proportional representation in Germany meant something quite different from what it means among us. Proportional representation is a general principle. There is usually more than one conceivable way of putting a general principle into practice, and several have been suggested in this case. In Britain, as here, and I believe in all Britishspeaking communities, the one that has found by far the most favour is the single transferable vote; and this "is what is meant when people here talk about proportional representation. Dr. Mcllraith says that wherever it had been tried, proportional representation had always resulted in chaos. In support of this astounding assertion he offers no evidence whatever, and I doubt if he could produce one instance in which the single transferable vote, given a fair trial, has so resulted. One instance to the contrary would be enough to disprove so sweeping an allegation as he has made. I have no actual knowledge of the state of things in Tasmania, where the single transferable vote has been in force since 1909, but I can hardly believe that it has resulted in chaos there. In his final sentence Dr. McIlwraith speaks of '"the two or three party system—the system of first past the" post,' 'from which it would seem that he is under the delusion that proportional representation would necessarily lead to the abandonment of the two or three party system. Proportional representation under the single transferable vote has not had that effect in Tasmania, nor anywhere else that I know of, and could not do so unless the majority of voters wanted that abandonment. M. ALDIS.