POLITICAL REPRESENTATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20088, 3 May 1927, Page 8

POLITICAL REPRESENTATION.

If it is in the contemplation of the Government to propose any alteration in the system ol representation in the elective branch of the Legislature, it is clearly unfortunate that it has delayed the preparation and introduction of the legislation that is necessary. The Representation Commission has now been assembled for the purpose of readjusting the boundaries of the electoral districts in accordance with the results of the census that was taken last year. Under the law as it stands, it is inevitable that the North Island must gain one seat in the House of Representatives at the expense of the South Island. It is just possible that it may gain two scats. Of the 76 members of the House as at present constituted, exclusive of the representatives of the Native race, 46 are returned by constituencies in the North Island. The distribution of seats, under which the North Island possesses sixteen members in excess of the number returned by South Island electorates, was based on the cemsus of 1921. At that time 60.81 per cent, of the European population of the Dominion resided in the North Island and 39.19 per cent, in the South Island. The latest census increased the disparity in favour of the North Island. It showed that 61.87 per cent, of the population resided there and 38.13 per cent, in the South Island. The balance of political power, it has to be recognised, rests definitely and permanently with the North Island. No system of representation could be devised that would deprive the North Island of the right which it legitimately possesses to exercise a political power corresponding to the great superiority in population that it now enjoys. But it is not impossible to provide a system under which the North Island may exercise the electoral power that is conferred on it by its weight of population while yet the South Island may preserve the measure of representation that is now accorded to it, A precedent exists, indeed, in the British North America Act in terms of which the province of Quebec always returns 65 members to the Canadian House of Commons, and each of the other provinces returns such a number as will give the same proportion of members to its population as the number 65 bears to the population of Quebec at each census. If the principle that is accepted in this arrangement were applied in New Zealand, the number of members of the House of Representatives would be increased after each census by the number that would b«f necessary to give the North Island the augmented representation to which its growth of population would entitle it, but the representation of the South Island would be retained at its present figure. There might bo some disadvantage in increasing the numerical strength of the House of Representatives, but it is questionable whether it would be more serious than the disadvantage that will happen if, as must be the case under a continuance of the existing electoral system, the already huge area of some of the constituencies in the South Island has to be enlarged.