SYSTEMS OF VOTING.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 93, 21 April 1908, Page 2

SYSTEMS OF VOTING.

(By Frank Morton.)

The system of block-voting at elections always seemed to me to be essentially a silly and dangerous system. It means that a country may be, and in effect generally is, governed by a bare majority of its citizens.* It means, in the extreme case, that.a thousand men do what they will with the laws; while 999 men are left without representation. This seems to me to be grossly unfair to the 999, who should be worth at least some consideration. Over in Tasmania I had a fairly close and intimate experience of the Hare system, and I have never ceased to wonder how it is that the system is not generally adopted by intelligent communities. Under the Hare system, no vote is lost. The poll fairly represents the various political opinions of the electors. The electorates are large. Say that in a certain electorate the Government has a following of two-thirds of the voters, and there are three members to'be returned. Under the Hare system, — c Government will return two men, and the Opposition one. The thing works with scientific certainty. I never saw an election under the Hare system that was not, in the result, absolutely representative o f the opinions and desires of the electors—in so far, that is, as one could judge on broad indications. Under the jblock vote system, the Government, in such a case as we have' assumed, would take three seats; and it would still take three seats, if its majority were only eight-fifteenths of the whole. The Hare system, in short,- gives proper and adequate representation to minorities, and, if if is once conceded that minorities have any rights at all, the block-vote system is a sort of outrage. j But you may ask me, reasonably enough, how it is, these things being so, that Tasmania abandoned the Hare system. Partly because the mob is an ass. To vote under the Hare system is a thing entailing the exercise ipf a little commonsense and- care. xne voter numbers the candidates on his voting paper in the order of his preference. That's all. But the mob argued that this was a complicated system. It was assumed, that men who had had at least a rudimentary education; and had acquired sufficient shrewdness to go about their ordinary avocations without accident, could not be trusted to mark a voting-paper 1, %3. The labour unions on the West Coast and in the cities were organising/ and the one thing they could appreciate and value was the fighting weight of absolute majority. They were perfectly frank. They could see no reason at all why minorities should have representation. Their mission as tney realised it was to coerce and. dominate minorities. They held that democracy j meant the overthrow of minorities; .the establishment of government of the people, for a majority of the people, by a majority of t the people. They were perfectly f consistent when they got into Parliament. Regarding the University as a sort of appanage of the minority, they tried over and over again to block the University vote. And so it was in other matters. But I would not have you think that the labour unions were largely instrumental in the overthrow of the sane system. They were not; they had not power. qnough at the time. The folly of the mob was the chief factor; and behind the mob was Vandemonia's inveterate dislike and distrust of a new thing. • The thinking men of mania^ headed by Mr Justice Clark, and the thinking politicians of Tasmania, headed" by Mr Herbert Nicholls>- were strong supporters of i/he Hare system to the last. Anyhow, I hold to my contention. The Hare system, if introduced to New Zealand, would be a tremendous power for go&d. We are becoming far indifferent to the overthrow_of bur minorities, and in our indifference we are becoming sadly blind to certain facts and tendencies.