THE LABOUR PARTY.

Southland Times, Issue 19509, 8 May 1922, Page 4

THE LABOUR PARTY.

One thing which Mr H. Holland, the leader of the Labour Party, made clear in his address in Invercargill was that the organisation with the portmanteau title led by Mr T. M. Wilford, was, in his opinion, of small account in the politics of this country at the present time. There is little or no ground on which the United Progressive Liberal-Labour Party can build any hope of an alliance with Mr Holland, for he sees a great gulf separating his own followers from those of Mr Wilford, and Mr Holland himself seems to have no doubt that the real issue of the next election is to be Reform or the Labour Party. In support of this claim, Mr Holland advanced some very powerful arguments, but he was not sound when he called proportional representation to his aid and to prove that the present Government is one that has the backing of a minority of the electors. On the figures showing the votes cast in the last election Mr Massey’s supporters may not be able to show an aggregate exceeding that of the two parties opposed to him, but unfortunately those figures are useless as an indication of the results if proportional representation were in vogue. Where the voting is carried out under the singlecount system now in operation, the elector knowing that he has no opportunity for an expression of his preferences, marks his voting paper without any idea of increasing the party aggregate, and in electorates where one party is not represented by a candidate the votes of the Supporters of that party behave in a strange manner, going now to one of the opposing organisations and at times to the other. In each case these votes count in the aggregate against the party they would support if opportunity offered. An instance of this can be supplied by the Invercargill contest. Can Mr Holland or any one else say what number of supporters of Mr Massey voted for Mr Hanan and what number decided to vote for Mr Archer because they could not accept the idea of voting for Mr Hanan? Can Mr Holland or anyone else say what number of the supporters of Mr Massey refrained

from voting because they would not accept the alternative offered them in Tnvx'ircargill ? Can he or anyone else say what number of Liberal Party supporters voted for Mr Archer because they disagreed with Mr Hanan’s utterances? Of course not. If the election had been held under proportional representation the electors would have not been subjected to influences which were present in 1919, and it does not require much knowledge of politics to say that the figures under P.R., would have been very different. We entirely agree with Mr Holland that the introduction of proportional representation is urgently required if our electoral system is to cease to be a hit-or-miss affair, but we confess our inability to accept his contention that the figures of the 1919 contest can give us any indication as to what would be the position of the various parties if the reform. were adopted. Mr Holland was not exaggerating when he said that the real Opposition in the House was the party he led and his address showed in convincing manner that he has no thought of working as junior partner of Mr Wilford. It is not necessary for us to deal with the speech in detail; it raises no pointe that have not been made by Mr Holland before, but it does show the electors that the leader of the Labour Party has no false idea about the coming contest. He sees in it a struggle between the ideas—extremist ideas, since he glories in being one —of the Labour Party and the ideas represented by Mr Massey. Utterances like those of Mr Holland serve to remind the public of the realities of the political position of to-day, and they will induce electors to make up their minds that whatever the choice offering in their own electorates, the real alternative for the country must be Red Fed government or a ministry which has led the country through a period bristling with dangers and has, in spite of the croakers, led it to the point where renewed prosperity is in sight. We do not say that Mr Massey has been free of fault. It would have been a miracle if mistakes had not occurred, no matter who had been Prime Minister, and we have from time to time made it very clear that we disagreed with Mr Massey, but that does not blind us to the realities of the position today nor to the fact that, take his administration all in all, it has achieved much in times of great danger, and we may take it from Mr Holland’s speech that he has more respect for the government led by Mr Massey than he would have for a cabinet built out of the conglomerate with a lengthy title, led by Mr Wilford, Mr Statham and a few others. =============== I