COUNTRY QUOTA

Evening Star, Issue 25635, 8 November 1945, Page 4

COUNTRY QUOTA

FARMERS’ HOSTILITY CANADIAN SYMPATHY LABOUR PLAN CONDEMNED The article below is an editorial in the ‘ Free Press Weekly Prairie . Farmer,’ Winnipeg, of September 19. It is entitled 1 Putting the Boot to the Farmers.’ The New Zealand Labour Government, now 10 years old and showing signs of losing its hold on the electorate, has embarked upon a scheme of electoral reform of the most drastic kind. It is of special interest to Canada, for C.C.F.( Co-operative Commonwealth Federation), leaders, these past few years, have widely advertised this regime as the perfect farmer-Labour-Socialist combination. The New Zealand farmers will, however, have views of their own on the subject, for the proposal naw before the New Zealand people is a drastic reduction in the parliamentary representation, ofrural areas. . The essence of democracy is equality and rectification of inequalities, and is, presumably, the pretext given for the proposed change in ' New Zealand by Prime Minister Fraser and his colleagues. But it is a fact that every democracy of the world weights its parliamentary institutions in such a way that the farmer, gets proportionately more parliamentary representation than the, dwellers in urban areas. It is so in Great Britain and in France. It is so in all the Dominions. It is so in Manitoba, where the City of Winnipeg, with about one-third of the province’s population, has 10 members in an assembly of 55.. In England there are urban constituencies with 100,000 electors on the rolls, and rural ridings with only about 30,000 electors. DIFFERING CONDITIONS.

For these apparent discrepancies there are very sound reasons, for logic and pure arithmetic are not always the safest guides. The fact is that the size of a constituency is, or should. be, a factor to be considered. A city of 75,000 people, all living close to each other, with common interests, and a common way of life, may he adequately represented in a parliament by a single member. But if those 76,000 people are spread over hundreds of square miles of country, separated from each.other by distance, by different occupations, and different . interests, it. may be necessary, in order to be fair, to give them two or even three members in Parliament. This has been the plan adopted everywhere, gnd in New Zealand it was worked out according to a special formula. In that? country, following each decennial census, all the electorates are subjected to examination to determine whether or not they hold a rural population. The test ruled urban population consisted of communities of 2,000 in any town or borough, and the law provided that rural communities should have their political stature raised by an addition of 28' per cent. to. tljeir populations when electoral districts were being redefined. THE 1943 ELECTION. In theheydey of the Labour Government’s power, the party moguls Ifouud no objection to this arrangement, because their programme was favour in rural areas. But latterly this has not heen the case; The rural areas have been discovering, that the chief benefits of the Socialist regime, have been bestowed upon the workers in tho cities—-reduction in the work week, fixed standards of pay, and" so on. Tho farmers began to vote against. the Government, and at the last election, in 1943. the Government won out only, by getting . the majority of the soldier vote. The Opposition- Party made big gains.. This caused grave, concern to Fraser, Nash, and company. Had the rural quota system not been operating, they realised, they would have won 55 seats ip the. House of Representatives instead of ’the 45 they did win. Therefore they set out—on grounds of high principle and. pure democracy, of course—to trim the farmers’ political power. They announced that they would pass a new electoral law abolishing the rural differential established for so long. The .fight is now on, for an election is due next year, and the Government wants to get the system changed before the farmers have another chance at the polls. “ BRUTAL ACTION."

All this, of course, is something the New Zealanders will have .to settle for themselves, but it may cause soma serious thinking in this" country just the same. The C.C.F. is like the New Zealand party in it presents a programme of Socialism to the electorate and bases its major appeal on twin approaches to the farmer and to the city worker. When it has been pointed out that the interests of these two classes of voters are often sharply divergent, and that the double 'approach contains the seeds of a most serious clash, C.C.F. spokesmen have become almost violent in their denials. . Yet, what has happened in New Zealand? The clash has emerged, and what does the Government do ? It does not modify its programme or policy. It sticks to its guns and takes brutal aotion to weaken the power of the Ifarmers, who it fears will vote against it. There have been electoral gerrymanders in Canada before this. Particularly in t)ie old days scheming politicians,have adjusted a boundary here or there to meet some special need. But even the most unscrupulous of. them never tried deliberately and arbitrarily to destroy the'just and established balance of political forces in this country Tor their own party needs. Yet this is precisely what this paragon of all the virtues, the Labour Government of New Zealand, is setting itself out to do.