PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16881, 8 July 1920, Page 2

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

, - WASN'T A SUCCESS IN NEW SOUTH WALES. • (from otjr own correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 29. Vigorous, but somewhat learned and involved argument is going on concerning the question: "Did the system cf Proportional Representation, under which the new New South Wales Parliament "was elected;*prove a success?" The most ardent advocate of. the system, Mr A. G.'Huie, insists that, so far as it was permitted, the system was successful, while the two main opponents of its further existence are, significantly, enougii, the Labour Party and the National Pariy, each of whom control powerful political "machines." Some of Mr Huie's remarks are of interest to New Zealand. • "The single electorate plan made the machine the power it was for evil, in this country," says Mr Huie in a letter to the newspapers. "Those who work the machine know this, hence their anxiety to regain a strangle hold on politics before it slips for ever from their grasp." Mr Huie combats the argument that the system did not produce a truly representative Parliament; he } says that the three parties—Labour, National, and Progressive-—are almost exactly represented according to the voting strength of the people. "That, he says, "is what the Nationalists and the Labour reactionaries object to. Just results do not appeal to them. No doubt the Nationalist pxccutivc wanted what Mr Massey fluked in New Zealand at the last election—sß per cent, of the members of 38 per cent, of the votes. Such an elector.il outrage would no doubt have appealed to them as just the thing. The Labour reactionaries no doubt wanted what Mr Evan got in Queensland—66 per cent, of the members on a vote of 53 per cent, of the electors. The idea of electoral justice is abhorrent to those who want to take the public down." Mr Huie goes on to say that the worst disadvantages of the New South Wales system—the hug© percentage of informal votes —was due to the regulation making it compulsory to vote in T>umevi"al order for' every candidate ,on the ballot paper —a regulation devised by. the State* Government, and never contemplated or approved by the advocates cf Proportional Representation. Under the true system the olector votes for as few or as many candidates as lie desires. However, the Labour Government promises to abolish Proportion#! Representation