THE CITIZEN’S VOTE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 308, 23 September 1943, Page 6

THE CITIZEN’S VOTE

In an address to his Diocesan Synod a few days ago, the Bishop of Auckland, the Rt. Rev. W. J. Simkin, emphasized.the importance of the citizen’s vote in the coming election. The casting of votes, he said, was a sacred duty. It is probable that a great many people, especially the younger generation of electors, may not regard the matter in this serious light. Judging by the figures of past elections some do not even trouble to cast their votes. It is for this reason that voting in Australian elections has been made compulsory. Tn New Zealand we have compromised by a half-way measure making enrolment compulsory, but leaving it to the elector to please himself whether he, or she, votes or not. That there is prevalent a too casual regard for what is really a very serious obligation is the more remarkable when it is remembered that our electoral privileges were only won after years of hard and bitter agitation. It is only 54 years, for example, since the principle of one-man-one-vote was established in this country by the! abolition of plural voting, and 50 years since the franchise was granted to women. . . , In this country, moreover, electors were heirs in the first place to, established electoral privileges that bad been won by their British forbears We have to go back just over a hundred years to the British Reform Act of 1832, for the first great classic victory won for the principle of free self-government through the Parliamentary franchise. That victory was the jumping-off place for subsequent reforms extending the principle. If New Zealand people have a tendency to taw these privileges won by their forefathers and transplanted to their own country too much for granted, it is possibly because they have not bad! to fiMit for them as did the people of the Motherland. 1 hose electoral rights should be jealously guarded. When rights are lost it is usually through indifference and neglect of vigilance. But indifference is apt to bring about evil results, even if I here be no loss of rights, n a country enjoying universal franchise for men and women, in wlu.ci from differences of political opinion sectional groups and parties emerge, power is apt to be won by that particular section or party which is alert to the importance of every single vote that can be cast tn its favour. Its policy may be unsound, its methods may went severe criticism, but if its individual members are more conscious ot the value of’ their votes than members of other groups, this consciousness may be a telling factor on election day. The citizen s vote therefore, has not only to be cast, but it should be carefully weighed befoiehand. _