ELECTORAL ACT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 277, 23 November 1945, Page 4

ELECTORAL ACT

Sir, Considerable misconception of the reason for rural concern over the Electoral Amendment Act exists. The

mam reason for the objection is the instinctive urge towards self-preser-vation. It is not true th»ct the Act gives each vote the same value, —that is sophistry. All votes lose all signiicance the moment they are cast. They become port of a geographical distribution that is best illustrated by reduction and absurdam. If there were as many rural and semi-rural seats as city seats all having or averaging 20,001 electors, 38 rural electorates returning candidates for one party by 20,000 majorities and 38 city electorates returning candidates by majorities of one each for another party the parties would lie. One party would be supported by 760,000 voters and the other by 380,038. On population the case would be worse. City electorate* average under one juvenile to two adults, while rural electorates have as high as one hundred per cent of their adult population under voting age. The best way to de-ponulate New Zealand is to continue or increase the transfer of rural population to the towns, but. politicians seem intent on carrying on with the job of reducing families, despite family benefits. —I am, etc., A. E. ROBINSON, Auckland, Nov. 20. 1945.