"STRATFORD EVENING POST" SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1928. ABOUT VOTE SPLITTING.

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 62, 26 May 1928, Page 4

"STRATFORD EVENING POST" SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1928. ABOUT VOTE SPLITTING.

A statement was made recently by one of the prominent members of the Reform Party that the new United organisation was simply a vote-splitting one, which remark won the thorough approval of most, if not all, staunch supporters of the Government party, to say nothing of some section of the Press.

Mr Forbes, the acting-Leader of the United Organisation, replied to the charge and denied emphatically that his party was merely a vote-split-ting concern, pointing out that it was the party standing between two extremes, Conservatism on the one hand, and Socialism on the other. Further, Mr Forbes stated that if there was any question of vote-split-ting, the remedy lay with Reform, which party being in power at present with an overwhelming majority, can easily alter the unsatisfactory system now in vogue and substitute a form of preferential voting which would ensure that the voice of the majority would prevail. Naturally Mr Forbes' opponents on the Reform side of the House do not agree with what he says, and many of the Reform papers appear to be quite annoyed about it, It is? pointed out by them that the present system is not all that can be desired, but that it is the best offering at present. Such a statement is quite absurd, and it is idle to suggest that the iniquitous first past the post system cannot be improved upon.

Why, even the late Mr Massey condemned that procedure and when he and his party repealed the second ballot—a clumsy substitute for preferential voting—he gave an undertaking that he would search for a better system than the "first past the post." What the extent of the "investigations" was, we do not know, but we do know that the "goods" were not produced. In the past few elections the present system has helped the party in power, but to-day, having learnt by experience in one or two byelections, and knowing that in some 'cases there will be several independent Government candidates opposing the official ones, and knowing further that the Reform stock has dropped to some extent, supporters of that party are showing perturbation. They are talking of the intrusion of other candidates into what they seem to consider their own preserves, and saying that such intrusion can only bring about the return of Labour men. With the latter conten-

tion we cannot agree. We are convinced that the majority of those electors who are dissatisfied with Reform will not support Labour now that there has been provided a satisfactory alternative, and despite what interested party followers may say the United Party have provided the satisfactory alternative . With only two extreme parties in the field, there might have been a danger, as it is always possible in such circumstances, that a dissatisfied electorate would turn from one extreme to the other in the belief that "we cannot be much worse off,

anyway." But if there were anything in the vote-splitting idea it would only be a case of chickens coming home to roost.

As the Auckland Star say: "The effrontery of the thing is staggering. Who but the Reform Party is .responsible for the electoral system that permits vote-splitting? And why should not a new party be formed. It is a free country—or it used to be. Reform, of course, regards a two-party system in which it has an indefinite lease of office as political [perfection, and works unceasingly to that end. If the people should prefer three or more parties* and turn Reform ou, Reform will have to make the best of a distressingly ungrateful an.d degenerate world." , ■.[iv\