The Legion’s Policy

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 146, 17 March 1934, Page 9

The Legion’s Policy

Sir, —Despite the anonymity of the writer, I think we may reasonably regard the letter appearing in your Wednesday’s issue as an apologia for the policy of the legion. Apparently, the writer’s only objection to proportional representation 1b that there is no time to adopt it for the next election. This is really too absurd for discussion, inasmuch as all that is required is to group the existing electorates into four, five or six-member constituencies, as the case may be, qjid pass a statute ordaining the simple principles of proportional representation: (1) The markjiiiiiiiiuiiniiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiEiiiiniiiiiiiEiiiiiiiiiiuiciiti

iiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiciiiiiiini ing of all ballot papers in the order of the voter’s preference; (2) the ascertainment of the electoral quota by dividing the number of votes cast by the number of vacancies and adding 1 to the result; and (3) the transferring of all votes in excess of the electoral quota for any candidates. This system would ensure: (1) The representation of the majority; (2) the representation of every minority strong enough to form an electoral quota in each constituency; and hence, (3) a really representative Parliament; (4) a complete secrecy of the ballot, inasmuch as the votes would have to be counted at one central polling booth in each district; and (5) permanent electoral boundaries. All this can be secured by a statute equally as simple as one ordaining preferential voting in single-member electorates, which my critic favours. Your correspondent’s" first objection accordingly goes by the board. If any proof is needed of the simplicity and practicability of proportional representation, we need not go beyond the case of Ireland. There the system was adopted at the time of a great national crisis in order to ensure the representation of the Unionist minority in Southern Ireland and the Nationalist and Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. We have the authority of the British Proportional Representation Society for saying that the system has been remarkable for the low percentage of informal votes and the effective representation of every section of opinion—in a word that it is a great success. It is true that the system has. been abolished in Northern Ireland, but that is due to the fact' that Lord Craigavon is a distiller, who wanted to prevent the development of a Prohibition party in the ranks of his own followers. Like all machine politicians, he found that proportional representation, by increasing the independence of the constituencies, impaired his own dominance. In the Free State, however, the rank and file of the people, having experienced the benefits of the system, are determined to. retain it although certain machine politicians would be glad to follow Lord Craigavon's example. Q?he result is that the Parliament sitting in Dublin is a really representative assembly, whereas across the Channel, the Mother of Parliaments is mastered by an unrepresentative majority which has been placed in power by cheating the constituencies, the result of a dishonest electoral system. I am obliged to your correspondent for the quotation from “Progress and Poverty.” We, Henry George men, unreservedly agree that one of the requisition of good government is simplicity. We bfc’lieve in doing first things first, however, and if your correspondent will look again he will find that Henry George is depicting the state of things that will obtain after the fundamental reform of making the land common property has been accomplished. The first and most essential task, in other words, is to. restore to every man his God-given rig.it in the soil which the Almighty in His infinite wisdom has transferred as a voluntary gift to mankind. • Once the labourer receives the lull product of his labour; once he has been assured of constant employment and the permanent enjoyment of that which belongs to him by natural right ; once he has been assured of a home of his own, then the way will open for the simplification of government and the permanent pacification of society. Accordingly we insist that the first and most clamant reform is to raise the land blockade, wdenv that it is the business of the State to find work for any man. but we insist that it is the duty of the State to afford every man the opportunity to employ himself. That objective can be achieved easily, effectively, and permanently by destroying private ownership of land by the simple process of concentrating taxation upon rental value of land until the speculator and the aggregator shall have been driven out of business.. The very simplicity, practicability, and effectiveness, of this policy constitute the verv reason why “our friend the enemy desires to side-track it. and hence nil thia inane piffling about currency, tariff-mon-gering, and other varieties of State tinkering with which we single-taxers will have nothing to do. Dr. R. Campbell Begg and his friends may tell us that we .are not statesmanlike in our outlook. We ieare it to your readers to decide whether our policy' is to be preferred to that which involves filling the country with immigrants while the unemployed evil is rampant in our midst.—l a®’ „ P. J. O’REGAN. Wellington, March 15.

Further Letters to the Editor will be fouud on page 21.