CATHOLIC FEDERATION

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 87, 11 October 1915, Page 8

CATHOLIC FEDERATION

ADDRESS QN PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. ,At the quarterly meeting of St. Joseph's branch of the New Zealand Catholic Federation, held last night, the president (Rev. Father Hurley, S.M.), delivered an address on "Proportional Representation," which he explained in a most lucid and interesting manner. Concluding a clear exposition of the system, the president said : — "To have representation a party must have at least a number amounting to the quota required. This method, and this method alone, gives representative government. It is not a faddish proposal, not a perplexing ingenious complication of a simple business : it is the carefully-worked-out right way to do something that hitherto we have been doing in the wrong way. It is the substilution of right for wrong. Certainly it is unfamiliar, and appears complicated ; but for the voter it is as simple as any other method ; the complications are unravelled by the returning officer and his staff in the central booth, where all the votes are collected and counted. To condemn it merely because it '16 complicated would be to act like the man who approved of an electric tram, but said he thought it would go better without all that jiggery-pokery of wires above. Its practical interest for us as Catholics lies in the fact that by it we, being one-seventh of the people, would have twelve Catholic members in Parliament, elected by the Catholic body, to watch over Catholic interests, explain the Catholic position and doctrine when needed, and protect Catholic rights."