ELECTORAL BOUNDS.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 6 April 1927, Page 5

ELECTORAL BOUNDS.

REVISION TO BE COMMENCED. NO RELIEF FOR SOUTH ISLAND. [OU* OWN COHBESrONDZSTj WELLINGTON, April 4. The North, and South Island Electoral Boundary Commissioners will shortly be called on to commence their statutary duty of revising electoral boundaries in line with the disclosures of the last census in relation to the distribution of population. This work is usually put in hand within a few months of the census being completed, but there has been long delay on the present occasion, which suggests that the Government had considered the possibility of getting Parliament to pass legislation during the coming session to rectify the difficulty facing the South Island, which is once more to lose at least one constituency owing to the rapid advance of the North Island. There are 76 European constituencies, and their boundaries are revised after each census, with the object of securing as. near as possible equal representation in line with population. The 1926 census showed that the North Island has 63.39 of the total European population and the South Island 36.61 per cent.

Recognising that the South Island is likely to lose, at least one more constituency, which will be transferred to the North, the question was raised last session by the South Island members, who -made a proposal that the North Island should lie given the representation to which it is entitled on population basis, but that the existing number of South Island seats should be maintained, as their growing size makes them difficult to represent. The long delay in setting up the commission for the revision of boundaries lent color to a suggestion that the Government favored giving time to legislate to meet the situation before the Commission could report, as immediately its recommendations are made they operate automatically. However, the decision of the Government to put boundary revision in hand suggests that it has not adopted any one of the proposed solutions of the South Island difficulties, but that the legal process must proceed without legislative interference. The Government Statistician will provide the Commission with detailed particulars as to the distribution of population. and it is likely it will get to work within the next fortnight. Its first duty will be to settle the quota for each electorate and the number of seats to be allocated to the respective islands. The boundaries will then be fixed subject to amendment on petition from the electors concerned in any of the changes.