REFERENDUM "PSYCHOLOGY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 59, 11 March 1937, Page 8

REFERENDUM "PSYCHOLOGY"

* It is a remarkable coincidence that on' Tuesday, while Mr. Parry i was pondering at Timaru over "the psychology behind" the Wellington ratepayers' five Noes on loan pro- , posals, Mr. Savage was saying in Auckland that "it might be advisable" to hold a referendum on whether the life of Parliament should be longer . than three years. To heighten the coincidence, yesterday's issue also contained comment by the "New York Times" on the Australian people's refusal to vote for extension of Federal power. The "psychology" that dictated five Noes and one Yes to six questions in Wellington, and which resulted in two Noes to two questions in Australia, seems to be a 90 per cent, negative. The "New [ York Times" discerns that the Australian people's backing of a decision in which the Privy Council reversed ' the Australian High Court, with re- ! suits adverse to extension of the i Federal authority, will not en- . courage President Roosevelt to seek a referendum in his own fight with the United States Supreme Court. : President Roosevelt's opinion of : public "psychology" may be guessed i from the fact that his Judiciary reform plan was never mentioned during the 1936 election campaign. Mr. Savage's viewpoint evidently is that, by submitting the life of Parliament to a referendum, members of Parliament will be freed from any accusation that they, the servants of the people, are seeking to extend their own tenure of office without express authority. But whether a longer Parliamentary life will arrive by the referendum route is a question the "psychologists" can only guess at. No one knows how a people in mass will vote.. Beside the five Wellington Noes (which Mr. Parry seems to connect, rather remotely, with the cemetery proposal) and the two Australian Noes, there was the extraordinary failure of the "Literary Digest's"' preliminary "straw poll" in the United States, which poll indicated "Landon," just before the Roosevelt landslide. Either . the "Digest's" nation-wide queslionjing reached almost everywhere the wrong people, or else electors are liable to sudden changes of mind. A Government that seeks a referendum may do so with equanimity if it does not mind much what the answer is, but when policy rests vitally on a public Yes (as in Australia) •it leans on a ffail reed. Mr. Savage's mind must have had a referendum bias on Tuesday, for he became sufjficient of a "psychologist" to say that a referendum among farmers • would return a 5 to 1 vote in favour of "guaranteed prices." But he did c not, .and will not, suggest that & "guaranteed prices" should have a t place on the voting paper, along ° with longer Parliaments, for an all c New Zealand referendum. £ If, by some mischance, a printer's ( error were to creep into the voting papers at the proposed life-of-Parlia- s ment referendum, and if, instead of i extending Parliament, the electors r were given the opportunity of '" ending Parliament, Mr. Savage's pro- ? posal would- become distinctly ( dangerous, and its result would be i: more than ever beyond the ability of the "psychologists" to forecast.