The Press.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14834, 27 November 1913, Page 6

The Press.

THURSDAY; NOVEMBER ?7. 1913.

THE GAME -EXPOSED, <■

If anything could chow the futility, the factiousness, and the utter , selfishness of the'obstruction set up in Parliament by the Opposition, 'it is Sir Joseph Ward's amendment, which Was rejected, on Tuesday night /by:33 votes -•to 24. It will bo remembered that the Government; iff :'~ response to a. praoticaHy -unanimous demand from the country, brought in ".'a, Bill to repeal the Second Ballot .'Act.-:The Opposition*, loudly clamoured for a "substitute;" What satisfactory ■ substitute is' possible except tho old system of majority voting, which is' good enough for the Mother and under which the Seddon Party got into, power and remained in power for twenty years? It is evident from; the debates and divisions in the Legislative Council that a provision for proportional .representation would not bo' passed -by the Upper Chamber even, if the country were in. favour of its being adopted for the House of .Representatives, which we-do not believe. Sir Joseph Ward in his amendment suggested preferential voting. How he .had the effrontery to bring forward this proposal wo could not conceive but. for the fact that nowadays he seems ;/to have effrontery for anything: Will it bo believed that Sir Joseph Ward, when ho originally brought down the precious - Second Ballot Bill, which ct that timo he regarded as the acme of legislative wisdom, exhaustively examined the system of preferential voting, condemned it root and branch, and eaid it- had been a failure wherever- it had been tried? This, however, is a fact which can bo verified by anyone who chooses to turn up Vol. 144 o f "Hansard," pages o<l, et seq. In. his speech on the second reading Sir Joseph Ward quoted .a letter from the Premier of Queensland, and another gentleman who, . be said, occupied a responsible position in Queensland, both stating that tho preferential voto/or contingent vote, as he called it, had proved a failure in that I State, that the Lower House had passed a Bill repealing it, but that this was thrown oat" by tho ■ LegislativeCouncil elected on a different franchise. Sir Joseph Ward, therefore, strongly the House to profit by the experiQueensland and to have nothing \tojdo)rtth tie. preferential vote. Why, i W™»ithAS complete change of front on 'politician? explain. '''■■■•'■ ft^^** tho preferential vote, '

or contingent vote, as most .of our readers are aware, is a system of singlomember constituencies, .liko our own, but the voter ma its 1, 2, 3, etc., opposite the names of the candidates in the order in which he prefers them. If any candidate has an absolute majority of the votes polled ho is elected. If J no candidate polls an absolute majority, then all except the two highest on the list are deemed defeated candidates, the alternative votes marked on their papers aro distributed among the two remaining candidates according to the preferences marked, and the one which comes out top with the aid of tho transferred votes is declared elected. The objections to tho system are twofold. In tho first place, it is almost as bad as the second ballot for immoral bargaining between parties and politicians having no principles in common, except the desire to get elected at any cost. This other chief objection —and this was the one mainly raised by Sir Joseph Ward's Queenslandinformants, is that it is only the parties whom we may call the immoral bargainers who avail themselves of tho alternative vote. Tho ordinary citizen is content to plump for tho man of his choice- in the old-fashioned way. But those who are under the control of the party wire-pullers are carefully instructed as to the use of the alternative j votes. The result is that, so far from the member returned under this system being the representative of the constituents as a whole, as advocates of the system would have us believe, he is really the product of the wire-pulling and the bargaining to which we have referred. Now our readers will probably see why Sir Joseph Ward has gone back on what he said in 1908, and why ho is now anxious to introduce the system which he then utterly condemned. Hβ knows that he and tho remnants of his party —the so-called "Liberals"—have no hope, unaided, of winning tho next general election. But he is quite ready to use and be used by his new friends, the "Red Feds.," or Social Democrats, as they call themselves, who are making strenuous preparations to capture as many seats as possible at tho next election. If tho preferential voting system were in vogue, tho Liberals would bo instructed to give their second vote to a "Red Fed.," and it is expected that tho "Red Feds." would respond by giving their second votes to the "Liberals." It is certain that neither "Red Feds." nor "Liberals" will give their, contingent votes to a Reform candidate, and in this way it is hoped that the party of law and order will be relegated .to the ranks of the Opposition, where, of course, in the event of another war on the community arising they will be deprived of ITie power to take the necessary steps to secure the public safety. If any further evidence were needed to show that Sir Joseph .Ward is merely a self-seeking politician, anxious to regain power by any means and at> any, cost, it is surely clear for all men to grasp in his desperate effort to foist on this country a voting system condemned wherever it has been tried, and manifestly bad and objectionable, except from point of view of the political . wire-puller who will stop short of no expedient to gain his end.