Hawke's Bay Herald. TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1879.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5368, 29 April 1879, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1879.

Last session, it will be remembered, Mr Whitaker, the member for Waikato,. brought in a measure that was in fact a rival to the Electoral Bill of the Government. Mr Whitaker's measure was entitled the Parliamentary Representation Bill, and was very generally admitted to be of a more liberal character in some respects than the Government measure on the same subject. The bill had, however, the great defect that it provided for ■ a system of l'epresentatiori of minorities, a system which neither the House nor the country were at the time prepared to adopt. Nor do we think they are prepared for it yet. The system is not, however, without its advocates, and. were it not for the intricacy of its details it would make more way in public favor than it has yet done. The principle that minorities as well as majorities should be represented is just arid right, though of course it ; nrast be conceded that the majority must rule. That, howevei', does not imply that the minority should have no representation. What is desirable, if it could be attained, is that the whole people should be represented in the Legislature, and then that the majority should decide. This was very forcibly put by Mr Whitaker, when speaking to the motion for the second reading of his bill. "What we want is," he said, " that all the minds of the country shoitld be fairly represented in this House — that this House, in fact, should be a miniature of the country itself. In order to have legitimate democracy, that is the only principle on which to act. You want the whole people, as it were, present by their representatives — not one particular clique, not a majority, but the whole of the people. Of course we must take care to make this distinction : that it is the right of the people — of the minority as well' as the majority — to be represented, and when you have got that representation, it is the right of the majority to decide."

In dismissing this question, the Lyttelton Times points out that it may easily happen that a majority in the House of Representatives only represents a minority of electors in the country. Suppose, for instance, that, the House were nearly equally divided on some question, the majority being only two or three. In that case' the electors represented by the. minority of members added to the unrepresented minority in the country would aggregately amount to a greater number than the electors represented by a bare majority in the House. So we cannot say that we ensure under our present system that in all cases the majority decide. It could not, of course, be contemplated that the minorities should be represented otherwise than proportionately to 'the majorities ; to that extent of representation the minorities in the several electorates seem to be justly entitled, and, while it js denied to them, they have no share 'in the government of the country. An extract from John Stuart Mill's work on Representative Government, which the Lyttelton Times quotes, is quite to the point. He says : — " In a really equal democracy every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. A majority of the, electors would always have a majority of the representatives ; but a minority of the electors would always have a minority of the representatives. Man for man they would be as fully represented as the majority. Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege ; one part of the people i-ule over the rest ; there is a part whose fair and equal share of influence in the representation is withheld from them, . contrary to all just government, but, above all, contrary to the principles of democracy, which profess equality, as its very root and foundation."

While, however, admitting the justice of the principle, we cannot see any way of carrying it out satisfactorily-. Hare's system is both cumbrous, and liable to be utilised so as to put the majority of the elections in the hands of a ring. The cumulative system we have been made familiar with in the election of school committees. If applied to Parliamentary elections, its effect would be to foster caucuses for the return of members selected , by certain combinations of electors. The system that prevails in some of the Knglish electorates, to which we referred when writing on the .subject last year, is favored by the Lyttelton Times. It applies to electorates returning three members, the electors being restricted to voting for two candidates, only. This, which is called the three-cornered system, might be tried in some electorates, just to see how the plan works, but it does not seem to us to fulfil the requirement of securing the representation of the minority, and we fear it would be almost impossible to devise a method that would satisfactorily accomplish that object.