PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION.

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 March 1911, Page 6

PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION.

NORTH v. SOUTH

[BY TELEGRAPH —PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, March, 22. There is some alarm and irritation in the far south at the impending reduction of the representation of the South Island in Parliament. Mr. T. Mackenzie, who represents Taieri, one of the seats threatened with extinction as a separate seat, is not at all pleased .“He emphatically objected” at Mosgiel on Thursday night, “to the present system of cutting to pieces the electorates of the Dominion.” He added that “the people were sick and tired of it,” which probably will surprise nobody more than “the people.” Commenting upon this, tho Dunedin “Star” observes;—“The reasonable section of the northern community must admit that equity and broad considerations of national policy warrant a departure from tho hard-and-fast rules which the Boundary Commissioners have hitherto been contained to observe. It is possible to push the principle of scientific representation to an absurd extreme.”

Commenting, on the Southern papers remarks the, ’’Dominion” says ‘‘Such we suppose as the driving of poor Mr. MacKenzie to fresh woods and pastures new. Of course all reasonable persons will listen to ' any good reasons commanded by ‘‘equity and broad consideration,’ ’but we must have them befdro wo can listen to them What are they in this case? The Star does not say. It does not suggest, indeed—without giving any supporting reason—that that electoral boundaries Ought not to be “disrupted” more than , once in ten years. That would bo good enough, were it not that the disparity in the population of the two islands is growing. more marked very rapidly. For some years the South Island has been over-represented, and if equity demands anything it is that one vote shall have one value.