SECOND BALLOT BILL.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 305, 18 September 1908, Page 8

SECOND BALLOT BILL.

; ■■" ——o—7 " '- i , , At a meeting of tho Patriotic Political Association held on Wednesday night it was agreed, on the motion , of Mr. C. de C. Williams, "that this-meeting of the Patriotic Association, held at the Trocadero, affirm that tho Second Ballot Bill is, in our opinion: (1) | Undesirable from tho patriotic standpoint, and can, at.this juncturo, only bo considered as a Parliament party move to secure its present position in the near future. (2) That as past experience has shown tho grave difficulty of getting the desirable proportion of the electors of this Dominion to a first poll, any second attempt is likely to result in an absurdly reduced number of'voters at a sccond ono, which will oven loss than the present system equitably express tho will of tho people as a whole, thus defeating the object of the Bill. (3) That tho Bill's attempt to seriously infringe on tho liberty of freo speech in tho public criticism of candidates (between the first and second ballot) by tho individual electors, their various organisations, or representative press, can only bo classed as an outrageous retrogressive step opposed to all the principle's of truo, social democracy." Tho motion also stated that tho mooting denied "tho right of any extant dominant party to autocratically legislate for I the part suppression of other parties coming . on in the natural course of events, which must bring about nceessary changes m con- . stitulional ideals, tho Bill being but , an election whip to drivo outside parties into the fold of tho aforesaid dominant party."