"PARTIES AND ELECTIONS"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 117, 20 May 1931, Page 8

"PARTIES AND ELECTIONS"

(To the Editor.)

V.'.'Sir,—Mr.'-,.G.|Mitchell's;, letter/;to you under this heading ia-full, of absurdities. He talks about the number of parties and groups ■in the' body, politic, laments, the number of-.minority*, representatives, and urges preferential ;Vbting;; '"We are a free people,"- says G; Mitchell, and then he talks about "wife-pulling indulged in to stop more than -two going t6 the poll." If we are a free people the! aspirations of a free people are^not. to be affected by any wire-pulling. If he has-:the one in fact, he cannot have the-other in operation. But are we a free people? Who rejected "fusion" in the political parties when it was most magnanimously offered by Mr. Forbes?

..p .^re-pulling is lowering to our public lifel when it is used'to prevent more than two candidates going to the poll and perhaps split a party 'vote and it succeeds, wherein is.it wi-ong or ineffective? It is right from a party viewpoint, and it has proved effective if it succeeds. No preferential system of voting will end the'party system. And to talk about Communist and Soviet influence affecting! the public life in New Zealand is. just-trifling. Mr. Forbes has shown the people of this Dominion the larger view.. He Has abandoned sectional or party disputants to their deserts. The election and 'party differences are Dot.his concern' for tho time being. The Prime Minister has Ret himself to solve and surmount ■ the country's difficulties and to help the people to overcome theirs.—l. am, etc.; ;v -. ...

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