THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1924. ELECTORAL SYSTEMS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19200, 17 June 1924, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1924. ELECTORAL SYSTEMS.

Mb Holland informed a meeting of his constituents last week that the Labour Party would offer “ determined opposition ” in the approaching session to tho Government’s proposals for amending the electoral system. The proposals are not of a kind to which enthusiastic support is likely to be accorded anywhere. They provide, in fact, for a hybi’id system of representation, under which two methods of election, neither of them previously adopted at parliamentary contests in New Zealand, would be brought into force. They contemplate that members for urban constituencies shall he elected under tho system of proportional representation, the constituencies being grouped for the purpose, and that the representatives of singlemember constituencies shall bo elected under a system of preferential voting. A Bill in which those proposals w r ere, embodied was introduced and circulated during the last session of Parliament with tho intimation that it would bn re-introduced this session, and it is t.h is Bill which is to be met with the l ' determined opposition” of the Labour Party. It will be seen that in this measure the Government proposes the abandonment of the existing electoral system and, in doing so, offers concessions to two different schools of thought. It aims at the adoption of a system of minority representation in the cities where the principle of proportional re-

presentation may most suitably be applied and at the adoption of a system of absolute majority representation in all other constituencies. The enactment of the proposal that the system of proportional representation should he brought into operation in the cities would grant to the Labour Party an instalment of its claim that this system of voting should ho adopted generally throughout tho dominion. Moreover, it would provide an abject-lesson in the election of members of Parliament by this method of voting that might bo of some value. The Labour Party, however, will apparently not bo content with the adoption of instalments of its programme. It> wants all or nothing. It is not prepared to accept tho system of proportional representation in the cities unless tho system is also brought into force in country constituencies, where it would be exceedingly difficult to apply it satisfactorily and whore it would, almost certainly, operate very to candidates who had not ample pecuniary resources at their disposal. The whole-hearted devotion which the Labour Party is exhibiting to the cause of proportional representation is, we need hardly say, not shared with it by the Labour Party in the House of Commons, one hundred members of which, including several Ministers, ivere included in tho majority that threw out last month a Bill, intro-, dnted by a Liberal member, providing for the application of this system in Home elections. That is a point of only minor interest, but it is one which may suggest to the electors to whom Mr Holland looks for support that there may be at least some room for doubt as to whether the claim of the parliamentary Labour Party that the system of proportional representation should be brought into force generally throughout the dominion, or not at all, is one that merits their approval. There are valid objections to the formation of the huge constituencies that would be necessary if the system were to oe applied to country districts; and, though we have no desire to be regarded a.s endorsing the Government’s proposals, we suggest that the idea of testing the system of proportional representation in urban constituencies is not without its recommendations.