The Wanganui Chronicle. FRIDAY', OCTOBER 1, 1943 ENDORSEMENT OR REJECTION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 232, 1 October 1943, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. FRIDAY', OCTOBER 1, 1943 ENDORSEMENT OR REJECTION

I JN'DER a system of first-past-the-post the Labour Party won the General Election, but it is stretching logic a little too far to say that the Government received an endorsement of its policy at the polls. While the voting totals are incomplete it is not possible to present a correct analysis of the situation, but it is abundantly clear that the Government did not, as Mr. Fraser avers, receive an endorsement of its policy from the public. An endorsement would require that a substantial majority of the electors voted in favour of the Labour Party’s candidates, whereas not 50 per cent, of them did so. The number of votes cast in favour of the Labour Party is about 47 per cent., which does not provide an endorsement: on the contrary, it earridk with it the. evidence that the majority of the voters are, for various reasons, opposed to the Government. It is purposeless and irrational to say that if some of the voters had not voted for the Democratic Labour Party they would have voted for the Labour Party, because such a statement can neither be proved nor disproved: it is simply beyond the knowledge of anyone. In his own constituency the Prime Minister failed to secure an endorsement of his candidature, and it would not be correct to assume that had Mr. Scrimgeour withdrawn from the contest those who supported him with their votes would have east them in favour of Mr. Fraser. Mr. Lee secured a minority of the Labour votes in the Grey Lynn district, but he failed because he could not detach from the Labour Party a sufficiently large number. Mr. Fraser knows that for various reasons the majority of those who voted in his electorate rejected him and he has no endorsement to sit in Parliament as the representative of Wellington Central, although he has the right to the seat. A right, differs from an endorsement in his own individual case, and by the same reasoning his parly has the right to govern the country but it has no endowment of its policy front the public.