PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15449, 30 November 1915, Page 5

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

' TO HIE editor or "the tress." Sir, —In reply to 3lr (J. -U. Butterworth, 1 wisn to state 1 am onJy a learner, and will accept him as a i teacher, as ho professes to have known all about it lor many years. 1 take it that, assuming my class is in a minority in all the wards, then, under the old system, candidates in said wards, representing the majority, will bo elected and my class will not be represented at all. Jn the new system. 1 understand that the majority could only use a certain number of votes (such number being termed the "quota"), and assuming that twelve candidates obtained the quota, then the overflow would be used to fill up the columns of the remaining four candidates who previously had n ot enough votes to take them in. and they would thus bp elected. In other words, the majority would get twelve members and the minority four, instead of under tlie old system, the majority getting sixteen. Now, that is the way I understand it. AVill Mr Butterworth be good enough to say whether I am right or wrong ? I must beg your correspondent to treat this subjcct with serious respect. The issue is "Will it conduce to the letter government of the City of Christchureh —better in every sense of the word —to elect the councillors by the system called proportional representation ?" I remonstrate with him that his remarks about "commercial g'oom"—what Mr carried in 1870 —or Mr Gladstone did in 18S2. or who liare was, and how he (Mr IJutterworth) took pains to explain to the Ladies' Political League the fundamental difference between presentation and representation—have nothing to do with the question, and arc only wasting vour space. —Yours, cto.. RATEPAYER.