A SIMILAR TRICK HERE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2451, 8 July 1922, Page 4

A SIMILAR TRICK HERE.

At the opening of this Session of Parliament Mr 11. E. Holland (on behalf of his Party) has tabled a no confidence motion. To be more correct he has tabled four separate and distinct motions as one. The four distinct questions in his motion are: (1) That the Government.was not warranted in reducing the salaries of Civil Servants and should reimburse them. (2) That there should he no “cut” in salaries in July. (3) That the House should disapprove of the Government’s opposition to the affiliation of the P. and T. Officers Association with the Alliance of Labour. (4) That the House condemn the Government for its failure to solve the unemployment difficulty.

There are .the four issues upon which members of the House are presumably to have not four separate votes but only one. In bur opinion such a motion is a political fraud not only upon the.members of the Ilousq but also upon the electors of the country. It is exactly of the same character as the faked ballot system we have referred to in this article. The presentation of such a motion should be an education to the electors on the palpable dishonesty imported into the polities of our country. Say a member is in favour of No. 2 he cannot vote that without being committed to 1 and 3 and 4. If he votes against 1, 3 and 4 he is held to have voted against 2. We have heard it said that “politics is a dirty game.” It is certainly not made any cleaner by the adoption of such methods of political trickery as we herein describe. Such a motion as this of Mr Holland’s should be subdivided before it is put. If it -is to be put as one question then members would be fully justified in refusing to vote on what is not one question but a series and which, as it stands, is a trap that members are invited to walk into. If electors want honest poll?, tics they should mark the party that is out to deceive and deal \ydth it severely when the opportunity offers. . (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.)