WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 March 1930, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS

WOULD 15E REFORMER. RENOUNCES INDEPENDENCE. {Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, March 28. The local papers are giving a good deal of prominence to the emphasis with which Mr H. R>. Jenkins, the late Independent-United representative of the Parnell electorate in the House of Representatives, is renouncing both imlepcndevice and unity. Having discovered that the only possible wav ho could recover his lost seat was hy joining the Reform Party and submitting himself .to a ballot of its members, he has conformed to these requirements and now is eagerly awaiting the determination of his fate. He still dings to the idea of a United-Reform fusion which, he imagines, would for all time dispose of the pretensions of Labour and speedily bring about the political millennium. Such information as is available from Auckland does not suggest that the electors of Parnell are specially eager to liavo Mr Jenkins as their representative in the Mouse for a, second time, and his selection as the Reform candidate would not be regarded' here as a particularly happy development for the party.

TWO PARTIES ONLY. The “Evening Post” seems to have as great a dislike to the “three party system” as Mr Jenkins himself has, and no greater love for the Labour Party. “Fusion means amalgamation,”' it says, “not the swallowing of one’party by the other. We see no insuperable obstacle to amalgamation, but there are differences and difficulties to be overcome. These must bo removed by negotiation and by reason. Diehard ebstinancy on cither side must be avoided at all costs. Mr Jenkins’ action must not lie misinterpreted as the beginning of a v,•lmlcsale surrender warranting renewed diehard opposition to negotiated fusion.” No doubt the evening,.paper made up its mind on this point years ago, but Mr Jenkins’ aversion to mo:\ than two parties seems to have developed no .longer ago than' the , clay sixteen months ago when Sir. Jorep ' Ward announced the names of bus colleagues in the Ministry'. Perhaps if his own name lin'd appeared on tire list Mr Jenkins would have managed to reconcile himself to the three party system. ELECTORAL METHODS. Curiously enough the “Post’’ last evening gave a place in its Icadei page to a very interesting article in which the writer suggests that as a ■last resort, proportional representation might be introduced for the destruction of the three party system. “If through the aggressiveness of Labour and the piirblind attitude of other politicians.” this' authority writes, “an election should be forced and leave no party with a clear majority over the whole House, then, perhaps, the two moderate parties might at last be forced to see the wisdom of joining forces so that we might speedily return to the sane two party system, or else they might at last unite to demand a reform of the electoral system, either by the adoption of proportional representation or preferential voting.” The writer does not make it quite clear as to what uses he would apply proportional representation or preferential voting, but it is quite, eertairi neither of these methods of voting would secure the two party systetu.

WHAT PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION MEANS.

This authority refers to proportional representation and preferential voting as if they both were panaceas for the multiplication of parties. This certainly is not the case in regard to proportional representation, which would give to all the parties of any considerable dimensions, as its title implies exactly the measure of representation to which they were cntitld by their numbers. Roughly speaking, had proportional represenlion, with the Dominion as one constituency, been in force at the last general election, Reform with 267.079 votes would have secured twenty-eight seats; United with 246,474 votes twenty-six; Labour with 203,621 votes twenty, and “Others,” of whom the present Speaker was the only genuine “Independent,” with 19,217 votes two. It will be seen from these figures that the three-party system would have been by no means extinguished by proportiona 1 representation, even if applied on this wide scale; but it would have given to the country an absolute representation of the wishes of the electors.