LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18778, 28 October 1932, Page 10

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

A DEPLETED CHAMBER. MEMBERSHIP DOWN TO 22. SMALLEST SINCE 1861. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. On Friday of this week the terms of the Hon/sir R. Heaton Rhodes, the Hon. L. M. Isitt and the Hon. G. Witty, all Canterbury members of the Legislative Counoil, will cease, and they have been informed by those in authority that their re-appointments, like those of a number of councillors already retired, will not be considered' until after the conclusion of the present session of Parliament. At the beginning of the first session of the present Parliament, the twenty-fourth, its roll stood at thirty-five members and at the end of the current week will have diminished to twenty-two, the smallest number since 1861 when the council inumbered twenty-one and the House of Representatives fifty-six. There is naturally a good deal of speculation here as to whom the eight or nine successful aspirants to the nominated chamber will be, but for the present it is no more than a street and club speculation. 'The Provinces. There have been complaints in the lobbies lately, to the effect that the South Island has had a much larger measure of representation .in the Legislative Council than has the North Island. This would he justified if representation in the nominated chamber rested on the same basis as it does in the elected chamber. But this is not the case. The constituency of ■the nominated chamber is the whole Dominion. But even on a narrower basis the representation of the Legislative Council, when Sir Heaton Rhodes, the Hon. L. M. Isitt and the Hon. George Witty, all South Island representatives, have retired, there will not he very much to quarrel about In tjie distribution of the membership of the second chamber. Of the twentytwo Legislative Councillors remaining in office on Saturday next, eleven will be. from the North Island and eleven from the South.

Eighteen Yeiarß Ago. While referring .to this question of representation it may not be inopportune to ask what has become of the Proportional Representation Bill, dealing with the Legislative Council, which Mr JSassey inspired during the general election of 1911 and which Sir Francis Bell in co-operation with his chief, passed through both branches of the Legislature three years later. One remembers that when the Reform Government and the Liberal-Labour Government coalesced for the .purpose of concentrating the whole strength of the Dominion upon the needs of the British Empire, Mr Massey agreed to hold over the measure until the more pressing demands of the country were secure.. But when the war was over, and the work of rehabilitation was in hand, surely it was the duty of the dominant .party, if not of all three parties, to see that the legislation placed on the Statute Book at the beginning of the war was either returneil to its legitimate position or consigned to the w'aste paper basket.