The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 1912. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

Waipa Post, Volume III, Issue 133, 2 August 1912, Page 2

The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 1912. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

PROPORTIONAL representation is finding advocates in many new quarters just now, both in the old country and in Australasia. Recently a Proportional Representation Society was formed in Wellington to urge this reform on the legislature. At the beginning of June Mr Asquith received a deputation of irishmen who contended there was great necessity in Ireland for this method of voting, and the Government is taking the matter up. The French Prime Minister, M. Poincare, declared that his Government would resign if the Republican major-

ily in the Chamber oi Deputies I I'ailed to follow his 1 ad in carry- j in;;' a measure of proportion d ( representation. Tasmania adopted : the principle at the last election;;,, j and appears sati .iicd with rcsu;:s , At the beginning; o! last mo nil., i the Belgium elections took plane, the proportional system being; used for the seventh ■lime by lb d country. In an article dealh.g ‘ with the question tine “ i-.lanches-ter Guardian”gives some interest- ! ing details, and expresses the ! view that the most important j lesson yielded by the Belgian j elections is that minorities in all parts of the country obtained

representation. The results lor j Brussels, Liege, and Ghent were ; as follows : Brussels. Parties. Votes. Scats obtained \ Catholic ... 150,052 ... 12 j Liberal ... 105,176 ... 8 j Socialist ... 78,865 ... 6 Liege. Socialist ... 91,796 6 Catholic ... 56,489 ••• 4 Liberal ... 39,986 ... 3 Ghent. Catholic ... 87,786 ... 7 Liberal ... 39,256 ... 3 Socialist ... 28,899 ••• 2 In each of the above-named centres minorities obtained representation in proportion to their strength. This has and will continue to have a political consequence of great value. The fight over religious education in schools has to some extent revived the old feeling of hostilities between Flanders and the Walloon country. Had the old votingmethods been in force the representation of the former would have been solidly Catholic, ol the latter solidly anti-Catholic, and this exaggeration in Parliament of the prevailing tendencies in the two districts would have embittered still more the present controversy. The representation of minorities under the new system moderates religious and racial animosities. The Guardian holds this to show the necessity for applying proportional representation to Ireland, and explains thal ■the old system of voting in Belgium was the block vote (scrutin de lisle), the same method of voting proposed in the Home Rule Bill for use in the new Belfast, Dublin, Cork, and other Irish constituencies. The Belgian and the Tasmanian elections, held within a month of each other, point the way by which the British Government can secure the object it has in view. The net result of the Belgian elections is that the Catholics, with a poll of about 1,350,000, have obtained 101 seats, whilst the Opposition, with a poll of about 1,250,000, has obtained 85 seats. Of the latter, the Liberals hold 15, the Socialists 39, and the Christian Democrats 2. A majority of about 100,000 votes has given a majority in seats of 16, and under a proportional system it is found by experience that such a majority is quite sufficient for stable government. Indeed, the objection entertained by some Belgians towards the proportional system is stated to be that it yields too stable a Government —the Catholics have remained in office. This therefore puis some fears to rest that the system would produce a series of unstable Governments. In Tasmania, it will be remembered, the Liberals were again returned to pow.er.