VOTING PAPERS.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20789, 24 February 1933, Page 10

VOTING PAPERS.

THE SYSTEM OF MARKING. DEBATE IN THE HOUSE. / . [From Our Parliamkxtart Ref-ortke.] WELLINGTON, February 23. Whether a uniform system of voting should be enforced throughout the Dominion or whether each separate locality should be allowed to retain the right of choosing its own system, was a question debated in the House of Representatives this evening during the Committee stages of the Auckland City Empowering Bill. By a majority of 43 votos to 18 the House upheld the principle that each district should have the right of adopting the system which suited it best. Clause 5 of the Bill empowers the Auckland City Council to adopt a method of voting by which a cross is made opposite the name of each favoured candidate, and rejects the system in gcnoral use by which names of candidates not approved by' the voter are struck out. Mr A. Stuart (C, Rangitikei) said he was emphatically opposed to the clause. During the recent Kangitikei election petition the Chief Justice had not allowed cross votes and had said, in fact, that they should be done away with. "The time has come when we should have sonic uniform system throughout New Zealand," said Mr Stuart. "This clause is simply getting away from the problem. The House, I think, might well take notice of the words of the Chief Justice." Difficult for Voters, Mr H. G. K. Mason (Lab., Auckland Suburbs) said that obviously according to the last speaker it was a pity that all men wore suits of different sizes. They should all wear the same size. "Jn Auckland, instead of having a ballot paper about three inches long, we have one that length," snid Mr •Mason, displaying a long sheet of paper. Mr JI. S. S. Kyle (C, Riccarton): Too many candidates Mr Mason: 1 have not counted them up. hut I suppose there are about 70. Mr Mason went on to point out the difficulty of voting by the present method of striking out names when there was a large number of candidates. Frequently a voter would find that he had struc.'v out too many, or that he had struck out one for whom he wished to vote. "We are going by experience." continued Mr Mason. "In Auckland the proportion of informal votes used tn he less than 2 per cent., hut when the system of striking out was adopted the percentage went up to 15." Mr Kyle said he thought it was absurd to compare uniformity of voting systems with uniformity of clothes. He considered it was" wrong for an individual authority to alter its voting system. The Municipal Corporations Bill was now before the House, and the whole question of voting could he dealt with comprehensively in that I Measure. "It is the central system that is wrong," continued Mr Kyle. "We want to get back to the ward system and avoid these huge.numbers of candidates." . • Mr F. W. Schramm (Lab.. Auckland i East): They will not do that. Mr Kyle: They ought to be made to. We had better representation under the | ward system. In Christchurch we have all sorts of different systems, proportional representation as well as first past the post. In Auckland they seem tr) want a bit of educating. They had Tiots there. Mr Schramm: They killed a man in Christchurch. Mr Kyle said lie would advise the hon. member not to come to Christchurch. His experience was that striking out was better than marking with a cross, but he wanted to see the whole system made uniform throughout the country. Mr H. E. Holland'B View. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr H. E. Holland) said that such uniformity could not be obtained unless Parliament chose to deprive the electors of the methods of election each group preferred. He failed to see why any locality should not make such a request as Auckland had made, a request for a system of voting that was most suited to it. There was not much difference between the two systems where the number of candidates was small, but when the number was large there were inevitably a great many informal papers where the method of striking out namos was used. Mr Kyle maintained that the increase in the percentage of informal votes was due simply to the increase in the number of candidates. The systems of conducting elections were being altered every year, and he thought it was imperative that general principles should be laid dow r n to cover the whole of the Dominion. Personally where there were, say, CO candidates and 21 seats to be filled he would prefer a system of numbering the candidates. Mr Stuart called for a division on the clause, and it was carried by 43 votes to 18. "Babbits are increasing at such a rate that they will drive the cattle off the land," declared Mr J. Henry at a meeting of the Franklin County Council on Monday. He said that in the/Waiau Pa districts settlers were becoming alarmed ar the increase in rabbits. Ho added t'mt since rabbit skins were realisiug such poor prices trappers were not operating, and in consequence rabbits were unchecked. The.county clerk intimated that the Department of Agriculture proposed to enforce the provisions of the Rabbit Act, and that already a number of notices to destroy had been' served. TlTis applied to the Bombay district, where, it was stated, rabbits were also on the increase.

The opinion that Americans, and by that' he meant the thoughtful Americans, were heartily sick of snarling European politics and competitive armaments was expressed by Mr C. E. Wheeler, a New Zealand journalist who recently returned from a tour abroad, when speaking at the Wellington Rotary Club luncheon on Tuesday. Mr Wheeler said that ; f New Zealanders sometimes became i apatient with the attitude of the Americans over the debt question, it should be remembered that they were doing it to force disarmament. They were putting the screw on and, they were the only people who were in a position to do so. The Americans themselves were very friendly towards Great Britain.

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