THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 1908. THE NEXT PRESIDENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13780, 19 June 1908, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 1908. THE NEXT PRESIDENT.

The American politicians have been busily employed for some time in the tc them congenial and exciting task of nominating their party candidates for the innumerable offices to be opened to contestation at the approaching elections. Chief of these offices is the Presidency of the United States, the occupant of which ranks for four years among the great rulers of the world and wields an authority, both in external and internal affairs, which far transcends that possessed by any constitutional sovereign. The national interest therefore naturally centres round the informal system which has been evolved, by the necessities and methods of party organisation, te reinforce the superficial simplicity of American procedure; and not only the eyes of America, but the eyes of the civilised world are to-day directed towards the Republican Party Convention, assembled at Chicago, which in nominating the candidate of the dominative political organisation is probably electing the next President of the United States. The formal- and constitutional process of electing an American President is prescribed in the famous compact which was agreed to by the original States of the Union eleven years after the Declaration of Independence. This Constitution sets forth that " each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress;" these electors,, voting by States and not individually* elect the Presidcut a the popular voting fox*

the Presidency being really a mere form. " But this constitutional method has been long overshadowed in the public mind, by the form of popular nominating in party convention and popular voting for the party nominee- at , the ballot-box. The constitutional "electors have become dummy voters who automatically cast their State votes when successful for that Presidential candidate who was the nominee of. the party which nominated them. They are the trusted and faithful political henchmen of their party managers, henchmen whose individual I loyalty to their pledge is ensured by j the constitutional practice which re- | quires them to vote as a unanimous State delegation and by the long and ! unbroken custom, based upon common party exigencies, and backed by the strength of the State Legislaturesof taking for granted that these " electors "will vote for the candidate whom they were appointed and elected to vote for. Every State elects these "electors" by the electoral method prevailing in that particular ; State : women voting where there is women's franchise, and men only where there is no female suffrage ; the " Australian system" of a printed ballot-paper being supplied and the "American system" of each voter finding his own ballot-paper being respectively followed according to the local law ; and residential or educational qualification, enrolment, naturalisation conditions, and so forth, in every case following local State regulation. • We have, as a result of all this, the citizens of the forty-five States which now comprise the great English-speaking Republic balloting on a common election day for a Presidential candidate and for a varying number of Presidential "electors," the ballot cast for their ■favoured candidate being nationally informal, and the vote given for the party " electors," whose very names they hardly know, being the effective one. It will be seen from this that American methods are as much a growth and a compromise as are our British methods, and that the American Constitution, like the British Constitution, bristles with apparent difficulties which in practice work smoothly enough.

What happens in America, behind this screen of constitutional figments, is that great party organisations advance candidates, and the candidate who carries sufficient States to give him a majority, counting each State proportionately to its population, is elected President. The Presidential candidate who secures the largest popular vote has not always been elected President, nor does the Constitution indicate that he should be ; similarly under our British system a Premier may easily have a majority in Parliament without that majority representing the greater number of votes polled in a contested election. And just -as party, efforts in a British State are bent to the carrying of doubtful seats, so in America party -efforts are bent to the carrying' of doubtful States. That candidate is the best from a party point of view whose I standing is such that he will attract the uncertain voters of the States where parties are closely balanced, and will do this without estranging the rank and file of party veterans. In his general popularity with those upon whom party allegiance lies lightly is the secret of Mr. Roosevelt's great "pull" with the Republican party, and the cause of the strength at its Convention of his nominee, Mr. Tafb. As for the Convention itself, which consists of groups of delegates from the various Republican State Conventions, each group numbering as many as its State has •' electors" in the final and formal choice of President, its roots lie far down in the .often malodorous soil of the "primaries." A " primary" is a meeting of the party members residing in the ward of a town or in the country townships of a county. These "primaries" send delegates to the County Convention, and from the County Conventions are sent delegates to the State Conventions. Such a highlydeveloped party organisation constitutes what is known in America as "the machine," and to the controlling of the machine the American politician mainly devotes his attention. For its purpose is not merely to nominate a party candidate for the Presidency. It nominates the humble country "constable," the | prosperous county "sheriff," the convenient magistrate, and the powerful judge— excepting always j the United States . Supreme Court. ; It nominates city councillors and county assessors, members of the boards of education and State and national legislators—always excepting the United States Senators. Nor is there any hope whatever of ' any ambitious American attaining I political office excepting with the '• aid of "the machine," and by the ' favour of those who control it. Its enormous national expenses are met j by subscriptions from those interested in the party policy, and the heavy local expenses partly by local subscriptions and partly by levies upon its candidates, „ The Presidential nominee is probably the only party candidate who would not be struck off the party " ticket" 'if he failed to pay the levy towards party, expenses made by the "executive" under whom he is ranged. Needless to say, the cost of governing the Republic is enormous. The President's salary is comparatively small, being £10,000 yearly but every office has salary or fees attached, and the number of offices is even greater than with us. ■-, Ever member of every elective body of the thousands of elective bodies, whether in the Union or its States or its cities, is paid ; such a thing as voluntary political service is practically unknown in the United States. The cost of the British monarchical system, all' things considered, is very much less than that of the' American republican system. The more they are compared in the broad light, of modern knowledge, the less inclined are British States towards a change,