The Three-fifths Majority.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVII, Issue 1372, 13 August 1895, Page 3

The Three-fifths Majority.

Speaking.at the public meeting in the Salvatiou Army Barracks, the liev. E. Walker, of the New Zealand Alliance, made,some, forcible allusions to the three-fifths majority vote and its application to the .colonial Prohibition. He saidHhat the Prohibitionists claimed as a right that the majority should rule in licensing matters, as in all other questions of public policy, but that' very few of them would care to see Prohibition carried by an infinitesimal majority,. He contended, however, that something less than a three-fifths vote should be determined upon, and illustrated his arguments with figures taken from the results of the last General Election. At that contest 303,076 votes were polled in the colony, exclusive of Maori votes, or, roundly, 300,000. If 300,000 colonial option votes should be recorded at the next election, a three-fifths vote for Prohibition would require 180,000 votes for that issue against 120,000 votes for license, or a majority of 60,000. All the electors on th'e rolls for the fou»* cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dnaedin at the last General Election, including dummies, were 64,833, or, in round numbers, probably not more than 60,000 bona fide electors. A threefifths vote, therefore, meant a majority equal to all the electors in the four large cities of the colony. If 175,000 voted for Prohibition, and 125,000 for license, the majority of 50,000 would fail to carry the reform. Again, suppose Prohibition were carried by 180,000 voces to 120,000, and on the next occasion—the three-fifths majority counting both ways—it failed to be removed by a vote of 175,000 for license against a vote of 125,000 for Prohibition, how could this law be, enforced? MLr Walker's proposal is that the minimum majority required to effect a change either way should be equal to 'Oae«Bevedth of the njiuority

vote. Under such an arrangement the minimum majority would be 20,000, or a vote of 160,000 to HO,OOO-the minority vote being 10,000 more than half the votes polled.—Lyttelton Times.