TRIANGULAR ELECTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14849, 28 November 1911, Page 6

TRIANGULAR ELECTIONS.

TitiANGULAB by-elections, caused by the running of Labour candidates, continue to prove a thorn in the side of the British Liberal Government. This fact supplies the reason for the cabled statement of the Chief Liberal Whip, that " he would press the Government to deal in the Franchise Bill with the minority vote in election contests where there are more than two candidates." In saying this, the Master of Elibank is supremely non-committal, after the manner of Whips. He does not talk about preferential voting— existing in Victoria—or about second ballot— practised in New Zealand; but as one of the managers of the party machine he knows that triangular elections have a habit of resulting in the splitting of the Radical (Liberal and Labour) vote, and Bin the triumph of the Unionist minority. Oldham furnishes a case in point. At the general election last year, after a straight-out Liberal v. Unionist duel, the Liberal ticket won with, 3000 to 4000 votes to spare; but' when a . by-election occurred last month, the Labour party, not having a general election on its hands, was able ~to send an emissary, Mr. Robinson, who did not get himself in, but succeeded in getting the Liberal out. The Liberal and the Labour candidates together polled 18,071 (Liberal 10,623, Labour 7448), the total of votes cast was 30,326, and the Unionist candidate, Mr. Dennis, won with the minority total of 12.255, or 1026 votes less than the same Mr. Dennis secured last year, when he was last on the poll. This arithmetic must be , fairly convincing to a Whip. Now, consider a similar triangular contest in the Victorian general election, also held last month I A Ministerialist, a Labour Oppositionist and an Independent wooed the electors of Ballarat East; according to the cabled figures, the Ministerialist's majority of 1021 on the first count was converted into a minority of 127 on the second count, the Labour party's preference votes, no doubt cast with the object of ousting the Ministerialist, having put the Independent ahead by that number. Had the same thing happened in Oldham, the Ballarat Ministerialist, though securing only a minority vote, would' have won. It does not, of course, follow that the British Liberal Government will, or should, place preferential voting in the new Franchise Bill; but the question arises whether Liberal and Labour sympathies are not. sufficiently akin, or, at any rate, sufficiently anti-Unionist, to make preference a useful weapon to both. Had Liberalism and Labour exchanged preference votes in Oldham, a Unionist minority poll could never have won'that seat. Events in Britain are thus pointing towards some sort of provision- against minority representation after triangular contests, and the Government Franchise Bill may provide a means to this end.; ,