WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 February 1932, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS

HAZARDS OF PARLIAMENT.

ELECTORAL REFORM

(Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Feb. 16.

The elevation of Mr Charles Edward de la Barca Macmillan, the member for Tauranga in the present House of Representatives, to the high office of Minister of Agriculture and Mines in succession to Mr David Jones , who was unfortunate enough to lose his seat for Mid-Canterbury at the recent general election has brought forth many protests from political circles where the overwhelming preponderance of farmers in the Cabinet, and the exclusion of business men, lmve occasioned dissatisfaction for some time past. At the present time, Mr Macmillan following the same occupation as. Mr .Jones does, the Hon. Downie Stewart is the only member of the Cabinet who is not actually engaged in rural pursuits, though the Hon E. Masters, and perhaps the Hon J. A. Young, might claim that other affairs were engaging part of their time. Of the fifteen Ministers who sat in the Seddon Cabinet between 1893 and 1906, for shorter or longer periods, nine or ten were commercial or professional men, always in a majority, and they appear to have done passing well.

ARRIVAL OF LABOUR

But there was no Labour Party to speak of during Mr Seddon’s long term of offiice, and it was not until the' accession of the Reform Party to office in 1912 that the vanguard of revolt began to make itself felt. The Labour Party, a§ it was, and stood by the Liberal Party at the election of 1914, four months after the opening of the Great War, and though the Reform Party was confirmed in office by a majority of two votes Mr Massey and his colleagues were glad enough to accept the conditions suggested by the Gov-ernor-General, Lord Liverpool, for the formation of a National Government during the duration of the conflict, and Sir Joseph Ward, then the leader of the Opposition, accepted the conditions submitted by. His Excellency. The .Labour Party, contrary it was understood at the time to the judgment of Mr A. Hindmarsh, its leader, declined to accept a scat in the evenly balanced Cabinet. This, it may be said, was the final parting between the Liberal and the Labour Parties which was to establish the three party system in this. country.

REFORM’S OPPORTUNITY

The division beween the Liberal and Labour Parties gave the Reform Party its opportunity, and, thanks mainly to Mr Massey’s tact and courage, it held office for a period only a lew. months shorter than did the Liberal Party under the phenomenal' guidance of Mr Seddon. One of the strange features of these two statesmen, and they really were statesmen jn the popular acceptance of the word, was their reluctance to tout'll effectively the electoral system of this Dominion. Mr Keel don in this respect aspired to nothing more heroic than to establish the system best suited to his own conception of what was good for the community. Mr Massey, espousing proportional representation for the Parliament of the country before he really understood that it meant, sought escape front his committal by confining the new system to the Legislative Council. The outcome of all this was that Sir Joseph Ward, .when he came into office a second time, a sick man, talked of electoral reform as if it might be shaped upon his proposals of twenty years before. AND TO-DAY.

The need for reform in this respect, in which the A] other Country stands behind practically the whole of Europe and behind many of its own out]x>sts. could not be better illustrated than by the voting within the metropolitan areas of this Dominion less than two years ago. In the Auckland areas Labour with 48,4(53 votes secured seven seats, while Coalition (United and Reform) with 44,631 votes secured three seats; in the Wellington area Labour with 39,426 votes secured five seats and Coalition with 34,632 votes secured one seat; in the Christchurch area Labour with 33,301 secured four seats while Coalition with 27,382 votes secured two seats, and in the Dunedin area Labour with 24,994 vote secured two seats, while Coalition with 22,230 votes secured , three seats. These figures show that while 146,384 votes cast for Labour secured eighteen seats, 128,841 votes cast for Coalition secured only nine seats. On the strength of these figures business men, residing chiefly within the metropolitan areas, are complaining that they have no representation in Parliament. What they really lack in this respect is plain horse sense.