GENERAL ELECTION.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17385, 23 April 1928, Page 7

GENERAL ELECTION.

CHOOSING CANDIDATES. ARROGANCE OF PARTY. A PROTEST. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Saturday. The Evening Post returns to the Reform Party’s method of nominating candidates for Parliament with a further protest against the perpetual tenure system. “If in the Reform Party,’’ it says, “tenure of a scat in a triennial Parliament is to be regarded as a continuing and absolute title to Party candidacy for the next Parliament then such a system would be the opposite to that of selection ballot practised by the Labour Party. A Labour member may, of course, become a candidate without a challenge, but the ballot machinery is there for the use of rival aspirants, and is frequently operated. . . A system of machine politics that tends to keep out of Parliament every man unadorned with a party label is bad enough. To create permanent proprietorship in the label would be a further depreciation of the franchise, a depreciation against which we hope the electors would rebel.” Of course, it is as a matter of party discipline that the Reform Party, to its very grfeat advantage at the polls, does not allow its candidates to be selected promiscuously by the electors. Good Generalship. To realise -the efficacy of the methods employed by the Hon. A. D. McLeod, familarly known as the “Minister of Elections,” it is necessary to examine the results they bring about. At the general election of 1925, when the Coates Ministry scored a victory second only to the greatest of Mr Seddon's triumphs at the polls, 071,971 valid votes were recorded. Of these 317,584 were cast for Reform candidates, 184,010 for Labour, 157,171 for Liberal, and 12,600 for Independent. Reform, that is, secured 47.3 per cent.'of the votes, Laborur 27.5 per cent., Liberal 23.4 per cent., and Independent I.S per cent. Reform, however, secured 08 per cent, of the European seats (52); Labour 17 per cent (13); and Liberal and Independent 15 per cent. (11). The glaring disproportion in the distribution of the representation of the j parties' may be expressed in another way. It took only 0107 votes to return a Reform candidate, while it look 14,201 votes to return a Labour candidate, and 14,288 votes to return a Liberal or independent candidate. Making Sure. In face of facts like these the Minister of Elections, while he remains in office, surely cannot be expected to look with any favour upon a proposal to amend the electoral law. The Labour Party, indeed, is the only party that has definitely pledged itself to a progressive movement of this kind. The Liberal Party just before the war, and, it must be feared, without realising .what it was about, very nearly carried the second reading of a proportional representation Bill introduced by Mr Veitch; but the four years of “war-peace” in Parliament put anything of l.he kind out of mind, and no enthusiasm for such a measure has j since been revived. The truth of the J matter is that the average member of j the House of Representatives is inclined to look with favour upon the j system that has brought him to Par- j liament, and is suspicious of experi- j meats that might make his seat less j secure. The friends of Reform should i pray that the Minister of Elections himself be seized with an inspiration to give to the country, during his reign, an equitable system of representation. Rubbing Along. ! „ Meanwhile the minor branches of j the disunited Opposition are rubbing j along in a very unimpressive fashion. The United Party’s organiser and general factotum, replying to some perfecjly reasonable questions put to him by a correspondent of one of the local papers, tells the anxious inquirer that j “lie lias neither the time nor the in- I clination to answer anonymous cor- j respondents,” but if flic writer willi come out- into the open” lie will endeavour to enlighten his political j darkness.” A gentleman of such wide experience in political campaigning should have been able to make more J capital than this out of Ihe ids oppor- i 1 unity. Then in the Waimarino con-j stitueney another Liberal is in the j field in opposition to Mr 1U W. Smith, | with the excuse that Hie sitting mem- i her is on friendly 'terms with members of the Reform Parly, and is not emphatic in bis repudiation of their ways. The Liberals are denouncing the platform of Labour a little more loudly than they are denouncing the shortcomings of Reform, and thus estranging from their party that section of the progressive forces that still subscribes to the Ballance and Seddon doctrines. And so on and so on to a helpless rabble. PROSPECTIVE CANDIDATES. Gossip among farmers and townspeople regarding the coming election lias associated Hie names of Mr John Cobbc with Oroua, Mr Alexander Stuart and Mr H. J. JX McManaway with Manawatu, Mr A. H. Coleman w tti Rangilikei, and Mr J. Georgetti with Waimarino. Messrs Stuart and Georgctli are both members of the Wellington Land Board. Mr Georgetti would oppose the Liberal member, Mr W. R. Smith, for Waimarino, but in Mr Stuart’s case the position is somewhat different, since the Reform member, Mr J. W. Linklater, already holds Manawatu; and it is unlikely, in Ihe light of Hon. A. D. McLeod's recent statement that all sitting Reform members will again carry the Reform banner, that the rumour regarding Mr Stuart and Manawatu lias any truth in it. As to the others, it is believed there is solid ground for believing that they will be found at the polls, in what colours it is, however, still uncertain. Messrs McManaway and Cobbe, both gentlemen with considerable experience of local body politics, may ally themselves with the United Party, for both have in the past given considerable weight to co-Liberalism. Mr Coleman's intentions, if be lias any at present, arc more obscure. It is well known that at the last election he contemplated an attack on Hie Rangilikei stronghold of Reform, and possibly the last of him politically lias not been heard. (