FAIR REPRESENTATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 150, 22 December 1911, Page 6

FAIR REPRESENTATION.

We referred yesterday to the happy unanimity which distinguishes the Press of this city with regard to the failure of the seconu* ballot, and also as to the general nature of the system that should take its place. It is at least arguable that the second ballot hae created greater evils than it has cured, and indeed the memory of the wire-pulling and the truckling, the intrigues and the bargains, that were ingloriously crowded into the week between the 7th and the 14tl\ of this month is so fresh in the minds of most of us that we are prepared to say, " Take . any shape but that," when anybody mentions the second ballot. The uncertainties and the injustices of the old system seem far preferable to such a saturnalia as a second ballot campaign, when there are t-hreo parties in ■.the field, and two of them are driven ) nvah'y for thje^vote^

of the third. - I<' ultimately, however, ' though in flying to tho ficcond ballot wo 1 may have sprung from the frying pan into the iire, theie is really no occasion lo «eek a remedy by springing buck again into the frying pan. There is really a third course open whicJi will secure all that ie needed without the uncertainties of the old system or J .he demoralisation of the second ballot. The two e6spntials of any satisfactory system are that no candidate shall be returned who has not secured an absolute majority of the votes caet, and that whatever the electors are required to do shall be done m a single operation. The system under which our Parliamentary elections were held down to 1905 violated tho firet of these conditions by allowing the " top scorer " among the candidates to win the seat, though more votes might have been polled against him than for him. The second condition is violated by the eecond I ballot. What is wanted i& a system which will guarantee the predominance of the will of the majority of the electors, without compelling them to come to tho poll a second time. A proportional system of representation, will aline meet the case. Apart from the demoralieation and the, general inconvenience to which we have referred, it is a very debatable question whether under present conditions the eecond ballot really does secure a true expression of the popular will. Whefr a candidate representing 6no party is opposed by two candidates from the opposite camp, the second ballot is fairly successful in giving tlie victory in the final beat to the pctrty which is really the stronger. But the intervention of a third party introduces a new element of uncertainty. The Socialist who has been returned for Otaki ,doee not represent tho mind of that constituency auy nu>r© than that of Wanganui is represented by its Labour member. ' Ih each case the votes of a large number of electors strongly opposed to the principal articles in the successful candidate's creed were necessary to secure his return. In the one case^ the first ballot would have given 0. truer representation of the opinions of the electors than Was actually given by the second ballot ; in the other case the chbice would have been the same under either system. It is the arrival of a third party that has made the second ballot in these cases either useless or worse than useless. This misrepre sentative effect of the second ballot is not generally appreciated, nor had wo appreciated it when we added together th© votes^ scored for each bf the two principal parties at the two ballots in order to gauge their relative strength. The Dominion protested against the application of this test, and so far as tho second ballot is concerned we accept tho correction. As our object was to- depreciate not the power of the Opposition, but the accuracy of the present Parliamentary; representative system, we can do so cheerfully. The moire closely the second ballot is examined the more glaring appear its defects.