CURRENT TOPICS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1837, 10 May 1888, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

The question may or may not come up \ for consideration during the approaching session of Parliament, but, if not, then m the session following at all events, the whole subject of redistribution of Beats will necessarily have to be dealt with. For under the amending Representation Act of last year the number of members of the next House ot "Representatives will be 74 instead of 95, that is to say there will be 74 European electorates instead of 91, the number of Maori members and Maori electorates still remaining at 4. Now unless some further concession as to pupulation be made to the country constituencies, this will mean m all cases a large, and m Borne an enormous, extension of the area of the electorates, a change which will have many and manifest drawbacks. The most important of these are that the amount of travelling involved will make electoral contests so expensive that none but wealthy persons can afford to be candidates, and that communities which have little m common will be grouped together. These evils will be still further intensified if the proposal already bruited m some quartersMinisterial and others— for the groupinc of these electorates into still larger areas, returning three or four members each be given effect to. This would indeed be a thoroughly Tory manoeuvre, and would have the inevitable effect of restricting the choice of the people to candidates of wealth and leisure, for such only could venture to undertake a candidature, wbich must necessaril} be an exceedingly costly affair. Such a state of things would make m favor of class legislation, and would be disastrous to the country, and while we do not oWect to the reduction of the number of members, we hold that it is of the highest importance to secure that the effect of that reduction should not be such as we have poiuted out. There is clearly fnly one way to obviate it and that is by increasing the allowance of nominal population now given to the country electorates. This stands at present at 18 per cent. It should be raised to at least 33 per ceut., and this done the new distribution will on the> whole operate not unfairly. There is no question of more vital interest to the population of New Zealand than how to secure the best results of the frozen meat export. We have over and over again pointed out that an inordinate and unjust share of the proceeds of this important export is absorbed by the middleman, and have urged that arrangements could and should be made by which the producer should receive much more nearly the proceeds of the sale of his meat as paid by the consumer. We have indeed been at considerable pains from time to. time to show how m our opinion th js might be effected, and m reverting to the general topic we do not propos e to reiterate what we have already freqi jently said on this head, but to direct attention to another phase of the subject. For not only does it ap-p e ar that enormous and excessive "profits are being made by middlemen 0 the loss of the New Zealand producer, but recent information goes to sho w that even m the matter of rail ca'/viage a t Home New Zealand meat '& being unfairly handicapped. Our authority is the London correspond' iVi % o f the " Press" who writes as follows : — " The railway rates of this cour;ory most certainly want looking into by Parliament, with a view to their recti jication. They are particularly hard on the New Zealand frozen meat tvade, which will be evident ennugn when the following fact is mentioned. Nearly all the carcases coming from your colony are disem barked at the Port of London, whence they are distributed all over the country. The London and North Western liailway Company charge £2 a ton for carrying New Zealand mutton from London to Liverpool, but they will carry American meat from Liverpool to Vac Metropolis for 25s — 75 per cent less — and this m face of the fact that the meat going to Liverpool is somewhat m the nature of back freight, seeing that more goods go to than come from London, 'i'his astonishing fact acconiuates the complaints made by meat sellers as to the evils consequent on the present centralisation of the New Zealand meat t "ade m London. If an inclination were shown to ship straight to j other parts of England direct, it might serve to bring the London and NorthWestern Company to its senses. Probably its lenient treatment of American meat is due to the feeling that, were a heavy freight charged, the Americans would at once charter ships to carry their meat straight to the Metropolis." This is a matter which is well worthy of the attention of all who are interested m the frozen meat trade, and which might well be taken up by our Chambers of Commerce.