PARTY DIVISIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22741, 29 November 1935, Page 8

PARTY DIVISIONS

Regarded from the aspect of the party composition of the new Parliament the election results have demonstrated, as we have already suggested, j the emphatic opinion of the electors that the issue lay between the National and the Labour Parties only. The support given to candidates adhering to other political groups was for the most part slender—so slender as, in some instances, to be contemptuous. The Democrat Party, despite its leader's extravagant prediction on the eve of the poll that it " would unquestionably be the Government," Avas the veritable damp squib of the election. In the new Parliament it will have a single representative. The number of the party's candidates that failed to secure votes enough to avoid forfeiture of their deposits was as considerable as it was instructive. A pathetic attempt during the election campaign to revive the old Liberal Party met with no encouragement whatever, the few candidates who subscribed themselves as • Liberals being in most instances at the bottom of the poll and being required, also, to forfeit their deposits. The moral seems to be obvious, The party position in New Zealand is sufficiently well defined, and endeavours to establish new fronts evoke no interest. Of the party system x it is difficult to be enamoured. It is part and parcel, however, of the Parliamentary practice and constitutional theory in all parts of the Empire, and the main consideration is that it should operate to the best possible advantage. The party system can work satisfactorily only where there are not more than two main parties in Parliament. This is, of course, an argument against the introduction of. electoral provisions which encourage the representation of all sorts of political groups, as is seen under systems which have grown up in some foreign countries. There is considerable weight in the argument that the two-party system is essential to democratic government and to the rule of the majority. The electors in New Zealand were clearly disposed to regard with disfavour the introduction into the contest, which has just been decided, of extraneous issues and of attempts to obtrude fresh parties into the political arena. The reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the polling is that they have made up their minds that there are two political parties only in the country that really count, the Socialist Party and the Anti-Socialist Party. The relative strength of these parties was not determined this week. The sweeping victory secured by the Labour Party is calculated to create a somewhat misleading impression as to the actual mind of the country, not only because the splitting of votes gave that party more seats than it would otherwise have secured, but also because on this occasion Labour received the benefit of the floating vote, that uncertain quantity which vacillates between one party and another and in many electorates holds the balance of power. The traditional and successful British parliamentary system has been to have two parties and no more. The lines in which Mr W. S. Gilbert immortalised that tradition were no doubt falsified when the three-party system appeared to have established itself for good in the House of Commons. But the operation of the three-party system in Great Britain has by mo means demonstrated in any striking way either its value or its vitality or necessary permanence. The once powerful Liberal Party at Home has shrunk to such an extent that it has 21 votes only in a House of 615 members. Two main parties continue to hold the field. It has been said that it is the business of statesmen to mould parliamentary practice and constitutional theory into conformity with the facts of a new age. But from the point of view of the political party these facts, whatever exactly they may be, seem to point far more to the value of the traditional practice than to the importance of a departure from it. The political issue in New Zealand will he between Socialism and anti-Socialism, and party divisions must sooner or later be strictly defined on that understanding.