ELECTORAL REFORM.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160723, 9 August 1920, Page 8

ELECTORAL REFORM.

Mr Massey, from whom the advocates of proportional representation, have been hoping against hope for some assistance towards their goal, made it quite clear in the House last week that he had not the slightest intention of interfering with the system of election which has served, liim so well in the past. Mr I). Sullivan, the Labour member for Avon, asked the Minister if he had noticed that the Christchurch City Council, after abandoning by a narrow majority proportional representation in the election of its members, had reverted to the system by a unanimous vote. Mr Massey said he was interested to learn what the Christchurch City Council had clone, hut tire information did not aifect his view in the least. He believed proportional representation would be just as unsatisfactory in New Zealand as it had been in New South Wales. The Prime Minister’s allusion to New South Wales will no doubt draw a strong and somewhat pointed protest from the friends of proportional representation. The fact is that the use of the system in New South Wales was unsatisfactory only to the length that the insistence upon the electors marking a preference for every candidate 1 on the ballot paper led to an unusually large proportion of informal votes. This was an innovation grafted on to the system which all authorities condemned, and, it is said, was primarily introduced for the purpose of handicap ping the Labour candidates. Critics will attribute Mr Massey’s opposition to the system to no higher motives. He owes his position on the Treasury Benches to vote-splitting, and he is taking care vote-splitting shall continue.