ABSOLUTE MAJORITY BILL.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3777, 27 June 1899, Page 3

ABSOLUTE MAJORITY BILL.

There was a good attendance at the Art Gallery, Christchurch, the other evening (says the ‘•Lyttelton. Times”), when Mr 11. MeNab, the member for Mataura, gave an address under the auspices of the Progressive Liberal Association, on the Absolut o Majority Bill. Mr MeNab said that there existed in the present electoral laws a system which prevented many of the people of the colony from having any voice whatever in politics. Thousands of thorn went up year after year to record their votes, yet they had no more effect than if they were denizens of the deep, or inhabitants of, say, Stanley’s Mountains of the Moon. The principles of the Absolute Maj nuty Bill had been brought under his notice when lie was first returned for Mataura m 1893. It had been very frequently cast up at him after the election of PTo that he had only got in by the votes being split, and there was probably some 1 .ruth in it. After the election of 1806 ho had examined the voting in the whole colony, and found that in sixteen constituencies the member had been elected with less than a majority of the votes polled. If during tho coming session Parliament were to disfranchise one-filth of the electors there would be a howl of indignation throughout the colony, but the people sat calmly under a system which allowed that state of things to exist. It was only very rarely in city elections that the member secured a majority of the votes. Mr MeNab explained how the votes would be counted under the absolute majority system, which, he said, had been devised to enable a voter to transfer his vote from those out of tho running and record it again in favour of the others. Tho result of tho Absolute Majority Bill would, to his mind, wipe out of existence •e man who represented only a seicn of tho community. The counting or the voles would take longer than under tim present system, but tho V.neats that would be gained would outweigh that disadvantage. An election was then conducted, supposedly, for tho first Premier of United Australia. The candidates were the Premiers of each of the Australian colonies. On the first counting, the voting was as follows;—Braddon, 12; Dickson, 9; Forrest, 11; Kingston, 24; Reid, 71; Turner, 16. Tho number of voters was thus 143, and seventy-two was the absolute majority. In order to ascertain this Dickson’s papers were recounted, and it was found that of the second votes of his supporters, four had gone to uraddon and two to Turner. This still did not give an absolute majority, and-the second votes of a orrest’s supporters were counted. These gave five more to Braddon, five to Kingston and one eacn to Roid and Tumor. This gave Roid seventy-two votes, an absolute majority. There were eleven informal votes, tho voters having left unerased more than one name.