Manawatu Evening Standard. CIRCULATION 4150 DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1914. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL REFORM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9856, 25 July 1914, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. CIRCULATION 4150 DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1914. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL REFORM.

The reform of the Upper House may now be regarded as assured. The debate on the second reading of the measure made it clear that, so far as the members of the Council are concerned, a majority favour the elective principle, the additional appointments to the nominative Chamber having had the effect of converting a minority into a majority. So decisive a majority as that secured when the division was taken on Thursday was, however, hardly anticipated. A three to one majority makes

a very decided change in the opinions of honourable members constituting the Upper Chamber. Last year, although the Bill passed its second reading in the Council, the members of that House made it clearly apparent that the majority was against the measure on the lines laid down by the Government, and the Select Committee set up to report upon it, practically killed the. Bill by recommending that members should be elected by the Lower House, in conjunction with the sitting members of the Council. Such a procedure was

open to the very serious objection that the Ministry of the day would still

continue to control the appointments. Although nominally the members of the House, in conjunction with the remaining members of the Council, would elect the new members required to fill the vacancies as they occurred, the Ministry would really select, and their sup-j porters would merely record their votes in favour of the Ministerial nominees. The position now is that the power of appointment, under the Government measure which has been accepted by the Upper House, rests with the electors, who will elect -the new members under a system of proportional representation. By adopting fairly largo electorates, and substituting the proportional representation system for the majority vote, the Government hopes to get a wider representation of the several sections of opinion in the country. The franchise remains as wide as that of the Lower House, but, instead of representing small constituencies, the

culties occasioned in oftir where a system of proportional w«ig has been adopted, in whipn • nrtp.|Mp* even number of elected meinnef»a«l«turned to Parbament. In 'fgmfm for instance, where the I#l»nr and Liberal parties practically toM**** equal number of seats, twmMe has been occasioned in this respect/ wWoh .» avoided here by the, adoption of »* principle that each electorate » to return an uneven number of Councillors, and not less than nine in each, instance. On the population basis, there are to be eighteen Councillors elected for the South Island and twenty-two for the North, and students of proportional representation urge that these larger constituencies will result in the more equitable representation of the many and divergent interests that ought to have a say in the administration of the country's affairs. The Commonwealth, which has, reputedly, the most democratic constitution enjoyed by any Upper House in the British Empire, is suffering by reason of the fact that the six States each return an equal number of members to the Senate. Thus Tasmania, with its 190,000 inhabitants, and Western Australia with its 282,000, return tho same number of members as New South Wales with its 1,660,000 and Victoria with its 1,325,000 inhabitants. The consequence is that parties are very unequally represented in the Upper House, and the system under which half the members of the Senate retire at each triennial election, plays directly into the hands of the party with the most powerful organisation. The independent candidate really has no chance of election. The party tickets make it impossible for him to secure anything like the number of votes required to ensure his return, and, in l the recent deadlock which occurred between the two Houses of the Australian Parliament, the only way out of the difficulty was the double dissolution which has been granted by the Gover-nor-General. To a certain extent, the principle which is to be adopted in connection with the election of members to the Legislative Council in this country may be regarded as an experiment, but it is one that has every prospect of being in the direction of solving one of the difficulties in connection with the proper representation of the people. No country can claim to be well governed that fails to provide adequate representation for, not merely the dominant class, but for the several sections of the community which claim to be entitled to, and should be represented in Parliament. We do not think there is any prospect of the Bill being held up in the Lower House. It is, indeed, practically certain to go on the Statute Book this year, although it is not intended to come into force till the Ist January, 1916. The measure being democratic the great majority of people are bound to approve of the principle of an elective Upper Souse, though there are certain to be differences of opinion on matters of detail. For instance, it is an open question if it would not have been a better arrangement if the electorates had been made smaller —each Upper House electorate to embody, say, eight Lower House electorates, and return five members each.