ARITHMETICAL POLITICS.

Colonist, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5778, 16 April 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

ARITHMETICAL POLITICS.

(From the ' Colonist,' April 1.)

Whatever doubt there may have beau in the mind of any Nelson man as to there beijg full justification for the resistance Gf our representatives in 1881 to the measure that deprived ns of so large a part of our political strength, must surely vanish before the boundaries bow published by the Commissioners for once more re-dis-tributiog seats. Without contending for one moment that population should not ba the chief element in apportioning representation, infatuation with the arithmetical doctrine must have softened the brains of those holding it if they cow fail to admit that any arrangement which disregards community of interest between the various portions of on electorate, and the facility with which the electors can assemble to confer with each other 011 public questions and the merits of candidates, strikes at the root of the representative system. Take for example the boimdaries now before us ; and which will mosfc certainly be those acted on at the nest General Election, as the notification of the Oommisnionera that up to 21st April they will receive written, objections practically amounts to nothing. The JBuller district is compounded of part of the county of tha% name, the whole of the Collingwood County and part of the Waimea. The question here will be, which Bide is the strongest, and if, say, the West Coast has the majority, the voters there can return their man, however objectionable he may be to our nearer neighbors, who have at all times from the foundation of the Colony acted with ns, and been considered as it were of the same family. So again with Waimea-Picfcon. The very name implied absence of concord to all who know the country when first the Bbsurd combination was formed, and now it covers a monstrosity, Buch as no sane man could have imagined. When the last election took place little more than one-third of the votes returned the Tory candidate against two professiog Liberals, the numbers in each case being substantially according to the locality of each aspirant's place of abode. Ifc was not the minority, as is so often complained, that went unrepresented, it was and is the majority. And see what is done now. The nearer part of the Waimea County, excepting the Wakapnaka district, is a,dded to Nelson, and the more distant, as far as Motueka and the Tophouse, ia joinpd to Picton and Havelock. Well is it that the integrity of the Commissioners is far above suspicion, or some sensorions person might have been so misled as to suggest secret influence. That, however, is entirely out of the question, and it only shows where mere arithmetic "will land a body of men, indisputably as honest as they are able. As it was Mr Seymour's arbitrary assumption of authority to set hims9lf above the Standing Orders in 1881 that alone got through the iniquitous Bill depriving Nelson of its due share of representation, so the most outrageous example of what mechanical rules can produce as against common sense occurs in the district which has the misfortune to be associated with him in name, though certainly not in spirit or opinion. If the object of the introducers of a strict arithmetical basic was to weakan popular interest in parliamentary contests,, they certainly seem in a fair way to succeed. What man of the people can hope to hold his ground for long when changes are so frequent aod so great. No sooner have his constituents learnt to respect his capacity and honesty than they are split up and scattered while others who are strange in feelings and wishes are annexed. Wealth or connection with a wealthy party thus very soon gains an ascendency, that once firmly established will discover some mode of repayment for its exertions and sacrifices.