POLITICAL NOTES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 48, Issue 14705, 13 July 1922, Page 5

POLITICAL NOTES.

LIBERALS AND LABOUR. Mx Ll M. Isitt, speaking in the yesterday, commented strongly an editorial statement in the Christchurch Press that for two years past the Liberal party had been coquetting with the extreme Labour Party with a view to forming a coalition with it. That, declared Mr Isitt, was a sheer - fabrication, and the editor in question knew that it was. The Hon. W. Nosworthy: You have ,» often voted in the same lobby with “ them. '(Laughter.) Mr Isitt: That has nothing to do with the point, and the hon. gentleman knows that. (Laughter.) * A Labour member interjected that " the Reform Party had voted for Mr /.Isitt at the last general election. Mr Isitt: Yes; and I deserved their $ votes. (Laughter.) He was opposed hy a Bolshevik, he added, and the Reformers in his electorate rightly supi ported him rather than his opponent. ' The extreme Labour men would be only ~ too glad for the Liberal Party to join the Reform Party and leave the way f clear for them. Nothing would suit their book better. But the Liberal Party could not, and would not, join - (the Reform Party. If they did the ex- ■ treme Labour Party hoped that mod- - crate Labour would be drawn into the Bolshevik ranks; but that time, he ventured to say, would never come. AL REPRESENTATION Dealing with electoral matters, Mr. ’ Statfcam pointed out in the House yesterday that just before he came . into power Mr Massey stated that proportional representation was a system y/hich ought to be adopted in .this • country, and that it was a system that •was supported by eminent public men t in all parts of the world. Mr Massey added that there was not the slightest - doubt that the system of proportional representation was “as nearly as possible perfect,” being “nearer perfect “than any other.” Perhaps a statemade by the Prime Minister in 1911 showed why he was now opposed to proportional representation. He then stated that under the system Labour would be represented in both Houses more in' proportion to its voting strength. He said he favoured that § then, but apparently he did not now. fMr Statham held that it would be quite posisble to retain the country quota under the new system. All -that, would be necessary would be to reckon every 100 voters in the country as equal to 128.