ELECTING A MILK COUNCIL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22005, 11 January 1935, Page 8

ELECTING A MILK COUNCIL

To read a brief account of the method by which a new Milk Council for Auckland will be elected next month is to be made to wonder whether a more cumbersome and complicated system has ever been devised. It has to be granted that the whole machinery of the council had to be improvised when the legislation constituting it was framed. There was no precedent in New Zealand, and it is doubtful whether any of value could be found elsewhere. Allowance must therefore be made for the difficulties to bo overcome, though it is not easy to justify the pains obviously taken to avoid anything like a direct vote of the people in the return of a body which can exercise considerable control over the living conditions of the people. The favoured few who do vote directly for their representatives are the producers and vendors. Even here the franchise is affected by the quantity of milk produced or handled. Plural voting is often represented as an anachronism which should s be abolished wherever possible. but in the return of so modern a body as the Auckland Milk Council it has been definitely revived. With all its anomalies and complications the method of election is supported by statute law, and must be followed in a few weeks' time. Tt is to be hoped it will not survive for another election. There is on record a recommendation by a Parliamentary committee suggesting a simpler system for the return of a smaller personnel, by direct vote as regards the representatives of the general public. It may not be ideal, but it does commend itself as better than the procedure now existing. If control of the milk supply is continued—and experience shows, unfortunately, that this kind of thing is more easily acquired than ended—some measure of reform in the electoral system of the board is certainly required. Amendment of the present authorising Act is stated to be necessary for a number of reasons. None is more compelling than the need for a reasonable method of election.