The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 1912. A MUCH-NEEDED REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1514, 9 August 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 1912. A MUCH-NEEDED REFORM.

The Government has lost no time in bringing down its Bill to give effect to the nation's demand for Legislative Council reform. That there is no longer any controversy over the necessity that the Council should be an elective body is the strongest,possible indictment of the manner in which the Continuous Ministry abused its .power of nomination. In theory there is a great deal to bo said for a nominative Upper House; in theory such a Council could be an ideal revising Chamber—a body in which the wisest and most disinterested men avail? able would perfect the work of legislation, ana protect the country against the excess of large temporary majorities in the House. The theory, however, asks something of popular politicians which, as New Zealand has discovered by bitter experience, popular politicians cannot be trusted to supply, and that something is a blend of impartiality, patriotism, self-denial and magnanimity. The Continuous Ministry began very, early to treat its power of nomination as a means of rewarding party hacks and party backers, and as time rolled by it proceeded, without a thought of apologising for doing so, to stuff the Council with candidates rejected by the people, with faithful servitors of the party, and with men whose sole qualification was the financial assistance they rendered the party in its battles at the polls. This cynical disregard of elementary, justice and even of common decency would have aroused the desire for reform even had not the Council, as a consequence of the Spoils' policy, become a mere machine for registering the Government's decrees. _ The necessity for an elective Council is thus a chose judr/ce, but there is ample room for disagreement as to the details: the number of Councillors to be elected, the number of electoral districts, and the method of voting.- In the Bill, which was aprarently drafted before the Budget was completed, the country is to be divided into two constituencies, each of which will return 20 members to the Council, but the Budget leaves this_ point open, and it is pretty certain that the ultimate arrangement will be the division of the country into several fairly equal largo electorates. Upon these two points there ought to be as little room for obstinate controversy as there is much room for discussion and adjustment, but we expect we shall hear the Radical) exclaiming against large constituencies as a device to keep Radicals out of the Council. Exactly how any particular party can be placed at a disadvantage we,do not understand; to urge that only "well-known citizens" can succeed in an appeal to a wider audience than a small local population is to imply, cither that the electors will vote for men regardless of their politics, or that certain sorts of politicians, try as they may, cannot make themselves well known by their own efforts and their own ability. No doubt the Radicals' will seize the chance to urge that justice and equality of opportunity require that motor-cars shall not be used during election contests. It would be as reasonable, and not at all different ill principle, to propose that only drays should be uecd, or traction engines: for there is positively no difference

between proscribing one particular method of locomotion and prescribing another. But we can leave that point until it arises in the House. Clause 4 of _ tho Bill, conserving to the House immunity from interference by the Council in respect of "money bills," goes to the very root of government by two Chambers, H, may be, and probably will !'j argued that as both Houses will be elective, and both, therefore, responsible to the people, the Council is as fully entitled to the control of finance as is the House. If it be allowed, however, that one of the two bodies shall possess sole authority over the finances of the nation, it is obvious that the House has the superior claim. The real difficulty about permitting tho Council to force the House into appealing to the country is the fact that "° C '° L so . will give to one of two constitutionally similar bodies—both Houses being elective—a power over the other which cannot tie reciprocal It has been urged against tho elective system that the party which is a majority in tho House may be in the minority in the Council, and that intolerable deadlocks will result. There would be no problem to answer hero were it not that the idea of a "deadlock," which is to say, some little delay in' giving legislative effect to some new idca° is intolerable to the Radical mind, at tho back of which always is the belief that to pass an Act in a hurry is to solve a problem for ever. But there will be no intolerable deadlock. Should a Government find an important policy measure destroyed by tho Council, i it can appeal to the country if the measure is worth it and drag half the Council to the people's,judgment at the same time, should it still be unable to carry its measure through the Council, the Government—assuming that it had the country with it—could then drag the other half of the Council before tho peorle. It is the peculiar virtue of the election of each Councillor for the term of two Parliaments, that it gives stability to the Chamber of revision and yet keeps it constantly under the hand of the people. The system of preferential voting favoured by the Government •is that which is specially approved by the Proportional Representation .Society of Great Britain, and it-is more fair and more scientific than any ■ other system of scientific voting that has been tried. Unfortunately its merits cannot be fully set out save in tho terms, of mathematics; a strictly scientific justification of its squaring of means with ends would simply confuse nine politicians out of ten, or perhaps even 99 out of 100 of them. ' The public as a whole cannot but welcome the Bill, and the more gladly because they know that if the Reform party had not come into power we should have had to whistle for any departure from the wretched system of maintaining the Council as an arm of Spoils politics.