PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Thirty-ninth Year of Publication ESTABLISHED 1875 Manawatu Daily Times WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1914.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12807, 3 June 1914, Page 4

PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Thirty-ninth Year of Publication ESTABLISHED 1875 Manawatu Daily Times WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1914.

SO fur the Prime Minister lias nut given any indication as to what proVISiCIiS VfiM '- ,0 embodied in the new Electoral Bill. In our opinion Ministers might with profit to the community refrain from any further tinkering with the electoral law, as the manner in which members are elected has now become a matter of minor importance, seeing that every adult has the franchise, the polling is all held on one day, and no person can exercise more than one vote. This gives every member of the democracy equal power in the selection of representatives. If any of them choose to waste their votes on candidates who have no hope of success, or if they are willing to be swayed by reasons other than political, that is their own affair. Because some electors are foolish is no reason why the old system of declaring the candidate elected who polls the most votes should be altered. The people do not want any freak or fancy system of election, such as the so-called proportional representation, which would involve destroying the power of the strongest of all the parties in the State and substituting figures for electoral determination. What may happen under the proportional representation lunacy has just been shown in Tasmania, and it is, apart from the whole folly of it, a complete condemnation of the system as a means of indicating public opinion. At last general election in Tasmania there were six members to be elected

for Denison; 14,N4!1 effective votes

were cast; the quota was 2122. Sir George Davies, who died recently, received li'o2 No. 1 votes, ami the balance to make up his quota were secured by the No. 2 votes recorded in his favour, and transferred from one candidate who had not more than the quota, and two who had been rejected as being the lowest on the poll. Sir George Davies, therefore, represented the 2122 electors whose votes he received either primarily or by transfer. Those electors formed his constituency. The Hare-Clark system of election establishes a constituency within a constituency. There is the larger constituency which returns six members, and there are the six smaller constituencies within the larger one, which each member creates and carves out for himself, and which he represents. Perhaps the larger constituency should more properly be styled "the electorate." Now (says a correspondent whose letter is published in The Australasian), no provision has been made for a by-election. When Sir George Davies died, it was impossible to appeal to his constituency to choose his successor—that is to say, the 2122 voters who put him in. They were scattered all through the electorate, and, of course, could not be ascertained. The appeal was made to the whole electorate, that is, to all the electors of Denison. A Labour member, Mr Sheridan, was returned by a small majority. Sir George Davies's constituents are practically unrepresented for the remainder of the Parliament, for, of the 11)02 electors who, at the general election of 1913, gave Davies their No. 1 votes, only five gave their No. 2 votes to Sheridan, and we may take it that at the by-election very few of those who secured the return of Davies voted for Sheridan. There is no need to comment upon an absurdity which produces such a result.

BUT there is one matter in which improvement could be effected with advantage and this relates to the City constituencies. So far as the election itself is concerned there is no reason why the three members for the Cities should not be elected by different portions, but for other reasons it is desirable that each City should form one electorate, returning three members. This would not only tend to make the representatives more united in their politics, but would prevent many anomalies, such as that of having one side of a street a dry district and on the other side a licensing area. If the Ministry bring down a proposal to \imalgamate the City electorates they should for various reasons secure the support of most of the City members, as well as that of the country mem'bers.