The Press Wednesday, June 25, 1924. Electoral Methods.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18108, 25 June 1924, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, June 25, 1924. Electoral Methods.

It is not very easy to see why theSouth African newspapers are urging that the results of the general election .show that ''electoral revision" is neccssarv. The South. African Party obtained, unfortunately, a minority of the votes cast, and it would have been defeated even if P.R. or some similar method of election had been employed. Apparently its proportion of the seats in the Assembly is less than its proportion of the popular vote, but nobody hitherto has ever believed that a strict equality in the proportions is necessary. If South Africa is wise it will prefer to make a natural recovery from the unpleasant position in which it now finds itself. At least one New Zealand paper has drawn from the South African situation the conclusion that 3ome kind of electoral revision is necessary in this country. "Three-party "politics," it says very sensibly, "al"wavs contain the germ of intrigue "and unprincipled bargain-making," and the triangular system should be discarded if this can bo managed without surrender of principle. In New Zealand, it points out, there are no marked differences of principle between the two moderate parties. "Yet," it proceeds, "while they remain separate "there must always be the danger of "unnatural alliances, prompted not by "political principle but by party feel"ing. There is this further lesson to "be drawn from the South African "election —that where it is impossible "to avoid a triangular fight there "should be provision in the electoral j "law to enable the voters themselves j "to speak decisively. They cannot do "so with a first-past-the-post system, "and the very existence of such a "system is a temptation to the intriguing politician to attempt manipulation of the issues for his own "benefit. . . To plunge the country 1 ' into another election under the old "system would be fair neither to the "electors nor to those candidates who '' wish to obtain a verdict not on chance "but on merit." We can understand those who advocate the obtaining of a "mirror" Parliament because they desire to see the multi-group system Europeanising our politics. But what passes our comprehension is the recommendation of P.R. as the key to political, stability. For the one thing certain about P.R.—its chief virtue, indeed, in the eyes of its advocates—is that it will stereotype the inconveniences and all the undesirable features of the three-party system, and will intensify and complicate them by creating new small parties. The three-party situation is in British countries unusual and abnormal, and, as "the example of Australia has shown, is not a permanent state towards which politics tends, but a passing phase only. This is particularly clear in New Zealand. Until a dojzen years ago those who now vote Labour did not realise their growing strength, and were content to divide their votes between the Liberal and Reform Parties. When Mr Massey came into office, and the Liberal Party began to wither under the. growing public recognition of the fact that Reform met all the needs of moderate and progressive men, .. the Labour Party, under the influence of the Labour movement in other countries, began- to organise and to advance, recognising that the old line of political cleavage had been obliterated by events. The present situation is merely a transition stage, and it will not\ be long before the fading out of the Liberal Party will be complete, and, two parties will be left facing each other once more. No "electoral revision" is required for the completion of this process.