ELECTORATE NUMBERS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30144, 30 May 1963, Page 15

ELECTORATE NUMBERS

Suggestion For Increase

Continued expansion of rural seats, with a consequent loss of voting power by the South Island and the contraction of metropolitan seats, was placing sound democratic Parliamentary representation in jeopardy, said Mr C. C. A. McLachlan, the chairman, in his address to the annual meeting of tjie Canterbury-Westland division of the National Party yesterday. “There is nothing sacred about the number of 80 seats or 76 European seats comprising our present House of Representatives,” Mr McLachlan said. “Present-day conditions of government, in my view, with ever-increas-ing responsibility descending on members, present a case not only for a larger Parliament. but also for a larger Cabinet.”

Charges were made regularly, and with some substance, that the power of government was vested to a greater degree in the hands of the department instead of the Minister, he said. One had only to note the increase in the Public Service over the last 20 years and the increased responsibility placed on it to> conclude that the fault did not lie with either the Public Service or the Legislature, but with the discrepancy in strength between the two. * ■

The obvious solution must be to strengthen the latter by increasing the number of elected representatives, Mr McLachlan said.