"POLITICAL CANNIBALISM"

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 152, 30 June 1922, Page 11

"POLITICAL CANNIBALISM"

MR. MASSEY ON PROPORTIONAL

REPRESENTATION.

In view of the Genei'al Election later in the year, it is certain that strenuous efforts will be made in the House of Bepresentatives this .session to improve the existing eystem of voting. On his return from Australia, Mr. Downie Stewart, Minister of Customs, said he liad had opportunities of learning .ftrsthiind the opinions of leading politicians upon tlie working of tho proportional representation system in connection with New South Wales elections. He said that whatever the abstract merits, of th© system might bo, yet as the system operated in Now South Wales the effect was that it waa difficult to find supporters for it. He described it as "political cannibalism,"

In a foreword, to a pamphlet dealing with pr.opoi-tional representation, aaid entitled "Political Cannibalism," th« Prime Minister (Mr. Massey) condemns the system in these words :—- ---"Theoretically, as tho writer of this pamphlet says, the proportional system seenm to embody all that its advocates claim foil- it; but, as-he goes on to point out, it fails to give those results which alone ensure stability of government, and_ the representation; of parties l>jr their ablest and most trusted members. Under th© propoi'tional system, as apparent in both elections, the tendency is to substitute 'group polities' for party government, without which there can be no real parliamentary government on' democratic lines.

"On the facte adduced, it would appear that the proportional system destroys local representation, and those personal relationships between members and their constituents which are go helpful in our political life; that it weakens, if it does not destroy, majority rule, by giving minorities . undue influence in the counsels of a stronger minority party, and that it plays into the hands -of the strongest andl moat ruthless of the party machines. I am satisfied that if properly understood, tihe> great majority, of the people of this country will have none of it, so far as the House of is concerned." . . . ■■-■■..