Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1908. A MORE EFFICIENT PARLIAMENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 125, 25 November 1908, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1908. A MORE EFFICIENT PARLIAMENT.

The country is to be congratulated upon the goneral result of the twenty-two second ballots which were held yesterday. Some good men have, of course, gone down, and some others have been returned whom we could well have spared. But on the whole the result is decidedly satiefactory, and, combined with that of the polling on the previous Tuesday, it undoubtedly gives us a far more efficient Parliament than that which was dissolved a few weeks ago. The majority which the Liberal Party has enjoyed for many years in the House of Representatives has been far too large to be wholesome. So overwhelming a preponderance of power tends rather to a tyranny than to the keen and dubious contests of normal party warfare, and we are all agreed that tyranny is not a good thing either for the agent or the patient. A salutary check has now been administered to this dangerous power. Tho Government had 56 followers in the late House, but this number, with the second ballot for the Bay of Plenty etill undecided, has been reduced to 46. The Opposition, on the other Hand, has had its forces increased from 18 to 25, while to the one Independent of the late House several have now been, added. The Government majority over Opposition and Independents combined ie still a large one, but it is very much less than the three to one majority which •it had previously enjoyed. The electors have wisely determined to put the brake on, and even the sanguine Premier will nay« to obey. In one respect the Second Ballot has disappointed its critics. The apathy which was confidently predicted as like_ly to make the. second' poll much less representative than tho first has not been icalised. In the three divisions of Wellington city which required^ a second ballot, and the Suburbs, only about four per cent, fewer votes were poLled yesterday than at the first ballot. And the results in these four electorates were what, in the absence of such a degree of indifference as would make the poll unrepresentative, we had anticipatedThe city has reasserted that independence of tho Government which it had en-joyed prior to its unfortunate subdmeion into single-member electorates. Mr. A. L. Herdman, though the joint Government majority against him at the first ballot was more than 800, has scored the splendid majority of 798 at the second — a result which conckisively demonstrates the fallacy of the theory that the effect of the second ballot would necessarily be to combine in favour of one candidate the votes which had been previously split between him and other representaiaves of the same party v . Mr. Herdmsn's victory is largely due to his successful performancec on tho platform, and it is made the more welcome by the fact that his is the only electorate of the city in which the Premier committed himself to a personal interference on behalf of a Government candidate. The severe snub administered by the electorate in which. Sir Joseph Ward himself is a voter, to his official attempt to dictate to his fellow-electors, is not likely to be lost upon the Government. Mr. R. A. Wrightts capture of Wellington South is even' more emphatically a personal triumph. Starting as a political nosice, and without any party or organisation behind hrm, N he was 255 votes behind Mr. Barber at the first ballot, but he won a weli-deserved vic.tory yesterday by the handsome margin of 563. His vigorous platform and street-corner speeches, and the extraordinary energy which he has thrown into the whote campaign, .were the main factors in his success. Mt. Barber <s left along with Messrs. E. G. Allen, 'Barclay, Matmun, . and M'acpherson to lament the effects of a second ballot, which has .proved the undoing of them all, after they had, in some cases against their convictions, helped to pass it. The defeat of Mr. A. JR. Atkinson tor Wellington East was the one break in the series of Opposition or Independent successes against the Government in j this city. Though the public had not ; expected it, it came as no surprise to those who had realised how the quarrel •between the Government and Independent Labour had been patched up in order to keep Mr. Atkinson out. Mr. M'Laren, whose campaigning was almost as vigorous as Mr. Wright's, is to be heartily congratulated upon his remarkable victory. It is singular indeed that one result of an Act which was supposed to be designed to crush Independent Labour has given that party its one victory. At the same time, its independence has been to some extent compromised by the Government support, which nearly doubled Mr". McLaren's original vote. If the result is to heal a breach which should never have arisen and to broaden the views of the member for Wellington East, the second ballots wih nut have been in vain. In the

Suburbs, Mr. J. P. Luke has scored a large majority over Mr. J. E. Fitzgerald, but as bdfch candidates are Government supporters there is no party significance in the result. Mr. Fitzgerald's excellent fight makes it certain that we shall hear of him again. Among the good me'ii i who harve been defeated elsewhere we notice Sir William Russell and Mr. W. W. Tanner, whose absence* f rom the House will be felt as a loss even by their respective opponents. But, on the whole, the personnel of the new House will show a distinct improvement on j that of its predecesor, and the access both to the numbers and to the debating powers of the Opposition will make for better government.