VOTE-SPLITTING

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 46, 1 September 1928, Page 11

VOTE-SPLITTING

« —. — PRIME MINISTER'S CONCERN EASILY AVOIDED (Written by S. Saunders.) Pleading guilty in.advance to the crime of- iteration and reiteration, I offier in extenuation of my offence a. statement made by my very good friend the Prime Minister in his '' innugural address" on the occasion of tho fifth Dominion oonforeneo of the New Zealand Political Eeform League, held in Wellington recently. "The organisation," Mr. Coates said, after.dealing with, a variety of other matters, ;"is..well forward. I .do not suggest it.is perfect; but it is very keen, so keen; indeed, that a number of our best supporters are really, a little inclined to think that their turn has arrived and that they should have the preference for contesting some of the constituencies. Probably that is a very healthy sign. It shows, at any rate, that they are keen'and are anxious to offer their services. Now, while they are excellent candidates, it would certainly make the lot of those responsible for the organisation very much easier if they.were not quite so'■ keen, and in that connection I sincerely trust that wise counsels will prevail. We have to remember that in 1922 four Government seats were lost through votesplitting. That was brought about by there being two candidates each supporting the same party contesting the same seat." It is not my purpose to depreciate a single word spoken by Mr. Coates, or a single sentiment expressed by him; but I know ho will pardon me reminding him that the Eeform Party received very ample compensation for the loss of those four seats at the 1922 election in the return of a number of its other candidates through vote-splitting on the part of their opponents. The votesplitting process that year, seriously involving twenty-four ultimately- successful candidates, gave the Eeform Party,, including Christchurch North and Kiccarton, ten seats, the Liberal Party seven, and the Labour Party seven. A GAME OF CHANCE* There is no need to dwell upon tho features of the General Election of that disastrous year. The Eeform Party returned from the constituencies with thirty-six European . seats, including Christchurch North and.Eiccarton; ,the Liberal Party with twenty-two, the Labour Party with sixteen, and the Independents with two, leaving tho Govenrment to carry on as: best it could by the grace of three of tho four Maori members. Of the European total votes polled 43.3 per cent, were cast for Reform (exclusive of the 8484 polled for tho successful candidates in the Christchurch North' and the Eiccarton constituencies); 30.5 per cent, for Liberal (including the votes just mentioned); 23.1 per cent, for Labour, and 4.1 per cent, for Independent. Put another way, each Eeform member represented 7240 votes, each Liberal member 8595 votes, each Labour member 10,170 votes, and each Independent member 10,170 votes. Practically the General Election of 1922 was a Eeform debacle bridged over only by Mr. Massey's commanding personality and' the weakness of a disunited Opposition. The collapso of Eeform in 1922, however, was loss remarkable than was its recovery in 1925. This miracle is popularly attributed to tho genius of youth. More likely it was' the product of mature years,. ripe experience, and consummate daring Be that as it may, it will remain as one of tho'most striking achievements in the political history of the Dominion. With fewer than half the votes polled the Eeform Party secured fifty-two of the seventy-six European seats in tho House of Eepresentatives, thus leaving the other two parties and the Independents to share only ! twenty-four between them.. While Eeform secured a seat for every 6107 votes it polled, Labour expended 14,201 votes on each of its.thirteen seats and the Liberals and Independents between them 13,615 votes on each of their eleven. With only 48 per cent, of the total votes polled, Eeform acquired 68 per cent, of the total representation. HOW IT IS PLAYED. Tho Prime Minister, though a politician, is too much of a sportsman and too much of a soldier to look complacently upon results of this kina. They are neither equitable nor desirable Mr. Coates went some way towards admitting as much as this when ho told tho Eeform Conference that it would lessen the burdens of those responsible for the organisation of tho party very materially if some of their friends would restrain their anxiety to figure in Parliament. But he has not yet fully realised tho difference between the Party and the State. "The virtue, the spirit,, the essence of the House of Commons," Edmund Burke declared many years ago, "consists in its being the express image of the nation.' ... The object,of our deliberation is to promote the good purposes for which elections have been instituted and to prevent their inconveniences." Perhaps in these later days, when both the schoolmaster and the historian are abroad, Burke may not be quoted with quite the same confidence as he could half a century and more ago; but his exposition of what should be the constitution of Parliament remains. If the House of Eepresentatives is to be the express image of tho nation—which seems a sound and practicable aspiration —then it must not be elected' under a system which gives one section of electors^ a member for every six thousand of its votes and demands from another section 14,000 votes for the same unit of representation. Mr. Massey recognised the injustice of the', present system of election by giving his countenance to both preferential voting and proportional representation, the ono for the rural constituencies and the other for* the urban constituencies; but unfor- . tunately his declining health did not allow him to proceed ,with his suggestions. His successor has carefully kept them out of the range of practical politics, with the ready acquiescence of a majority of the members of the House, and the next move, if any move is to be made, must come from the electors themselves. TRY IT ON THE DOG. One of the prominent planks in the Eeform platform Mr.- Massey submitted to a great audience in the Wellington Tciwn Hall seventeen years ago was the abolition of the nominated Legislative Council and the substitution of a Second Chamber elected under the system of proportional representation. When he came into office in the following year he was as good as his wo.rd, and entrusted to Sir Francis Bell ■ the preparation of the measure that;' gentleman subsequently carried ,'thi'pnglj:::' the^Council, and' /pass-. o'i on■ to itho Houee ofcßepresentatives; ■to:'•• receive- they imbrioiSitur. of that ■branch , of\.the: -Lflgiislfitttre. The Lib^ oral'Party'in the House opposed the measure in the form it came from the . Council on" the. ground that it would loave the Eeform Party, with a largo majority in the second Chamber while the appointments made by the partyin office were expiring. The objection was sound enough in its way, though perhaps over emphasised at tho time, and on the formation of the National Cabinet in the second year of tho Great War the operation of the measuro was suspended during tho pleasure.

of tlio Governor expressed by Order-in-Council. There it remains at present, and it niay not be inopportune to Suggest that the Prime . Minister might pay a very appropriate, tribute to the memory of Mr. Massey and ,a worthy acknowledgment of the groat work of Sir Francis Bell by issuing the Oider-in-Council and leaving the result to determine whether or not the reform should be extended. Meanwhile the vote-splitting, for which every politician has tears when it happens to bo on his own side, might bo avoided so far as the House of .Representatives is concerned, by a "system of preferential voting which' would allow half a dozen or more Eeforni candidates to contest the fioskill seat' without the chances of the party being in any way impaired. These vagrant observations are commended to Mr. Ooates witli the warmest goodwill.