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Bruce Herald, Volume III, Issue 74, 7 September 1865, Page 3

! ** ■ i We do not wonder that the Otago memI bers of the House of Representatives were ! grievously disappointed when the Gdvern- | ment laid on the table of the House the new Representation Bill. Although ten additional members are accorded to Canterbury and Otago there can be little doubt that the two provinces we have named are entitled to a much larger increase of representation to place them on an equality with the provinces of the North Island. Otago, especially, is unfairly treated : and of Otago decidedly the most ill-treated portion is the present county of Bruce. Otago is to be divided into twelve Electoral Districts, named respectively — City of Dunedin, Roslyn, Caversham, Port Chalmers, Taieri, Bruce, Clutha, Hampden, Oamaru, Lindis, Idaburn, and the Goldfield's Boroughs. The City of Dunedia is to return two members', and each of the other districts one. It would be difficult to conceive a more unjust or unequal distribution of represent;) tion than that proposed by the bill. We cannot imagine on what grounds the Government has arrived at its conclusions as to the division of the Province and adjustment of representation. It cannot have taken the Electoral Rolls as a basis, for if so then the result would have been very different. The | existing district of Bruce, comprising the new districts of Taieri, Bruce and Clutha, now returns two members; it is to be cut up into three districts, each returning one member. Hampden, -which now returns one member, is to be divided into four districts, each returning a member. The town of Oamaru is to have a member to itself, pnd.the pastoral districts of Lindis and Idaburn are each -to have the same amount of representation as the thickly-populated old-settled Provincial Electoral Districts ofWaihola, Tokomairiro, Lawrence and Matau, comprised in the new district of Bruce. The County of Hampden, as it now exists, is to have four members ; while Bruce, as now bounded, is to have three, although it contains nearly onethird more electors and is a much more important and productive part of the Province. Two years' ago the new Representation Bill, which was lost through the selfishness of the Canterbury members, proposed to give the Taieri and Tokomairiro two members each and the Clutha one. This number of members would be much fairer than the number proposed in the new bill, and would not be by any means more than the importance of the district and the number of registered electors entitles it to. To give the few run-holders of the Idaburn and Lindis - districts two members, while the two thousand settlers between Caversham and the Mataura are only to have three, is a mockery. Again, Milton has, we think, quite as much right to be a distinct electoral district, returning a member to the Colonial Parliament, as Oamaru has, although we do not think that either are entitled to the position. But if Otago is only to have the same number of members as Auckland (including the goldfields members, who will not be solely Otag*o representatives,) surely it is not too much to ask that the southern part of the Province may get its fair proportion of members, and that thj claims of the ag-riculturists will be considered as well as those of the squatters. If this is done the Taieri, Bruce, and Clutha diz-

tricts,shouldhave flve ; members at -least. We sincerely trust that the Otago members will strenuously : oppose the passage of the bill in its preseht stafe, and insist on a fairer distribution of representation. If the bill passes in its present state, the just claims of the southern districtsfdi the Province will have been: ignored, and there will be no remedy for it for a long time to come.