LOSS AND GAIN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1126, 13 May 1911, Page 6

LOSS AND GAIN.

REPRESENTATION"—NORTH AND

SOUTH,

(By TelesraDh.-Special Correspondent.) Auckland, May 12. A suggestion emanates from Dunedin that tho electoral representation law should be altered. "With this view, Mr. James Allen, iU.P. for Bruce, does not agree. Interviewed at Auckland, ih: Allen said ho failed to seo how the South Island was to avoid losing at least three seats before next election, sinco the law as it existed provided that there should bo a preponderance m the; Legislature according to- population: ' .Nevertheless, he felt that tho time liad arrived when the position of the South Island would have to bo considered by Parliament. They could not go on enlarging the size, 'of tho southern constituencies. They would become too unwieldly to work. On tho present occasion ho realised that there was not timo to amend tho law before the Electoral Revision Committee sat, and the North would probably take at least three seats from the South, but after the election excitement was over and the subject could bo viewed dispassionately in tho Legislature, ho thought it would be necessary to alter the statutes to provide that while no further reduction should take place in tho South, prescribed increase" should take" place in tho North, assuming that the census returns warranted it. This would mean increasing tho total number of members of Parliament, hut would allow increased representation where it was justified without reducing representation where the electorates v/oro already as large as they should be. This proposal, if adopted, ho thought, would be the most reasonable solution of an intricate problem.

Asked what lie thought of tho proposal that if the South Island was decreasing in population and prosperity, a liberal expenditure of public money would be one of tho most effective methods of amelioration, Mr. Allen said it was not generally realised in tho North that there was ample room for expansion and development in tho South. In Central Otago, particularly, there was room for a big population, if the land could only bo watered and cultivated on the small settlement sclicmo. With Government assistance in tho direction of irrigation, tho progress in Central Otago would be very great indeed.