THE ELECTORAL BILL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23351, 17 November 1937, Page 10

THE ELECTORAL BILL

It is not quite apparent that the Government can claim special virtue for the honouring of any particular one of its pledges while it leaves others unredeemed. The introduction of the Electoral Bill does, however, redeem a promise that was made by it, and it is likely that a large majority of the electors will agree that the change proposed by this measure is desirable. Under its provisions the three-year parliamentary term will be restored. To the Prime Minister himself, once he had attained office, the idea of a quadrennial Parliament evidently ceased to be the serious irritant that it was while he was Leader of the Opposition. Fairly recently he stated that the Government objected to the method that was adopted to extend the life of Parliament more than it objected to the period of the extension. He seems to have inclined to the idea that a referendum should be taken to determine the duration of the term. There is no such provision, however, in the Bill now before Parliament, and no doubt the Prime Minister has satisfied himself that if the issue were submitted in that way to the electors the verdict would be pronouncedly unfavourable to an extension of the parliamentary term beyond three years. Therefore the amending measure is one of reinstatement pure and simple, save that it provides for the extension to Maori voters of the privilege of the secret ballot. This is a reasonable proposal. Up to the present the elections of Maori representatives have been conducted on a system of open

voting, which is of course quite inconsistent with the electoral law of the country. But the reasons which originally made this procedure expedient should by now have lost their force. After sixty years' experience of the system of State education, in the benefits of which the Maoris are participants, it should be a natural expectation that by now they will be sufficiently instructed to exercise their votes under the ballot system. The new provision for the conduct of elections of members to represent Native constituencies will get . rid of an anachronism.