WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 August 1933, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS

ELECTORAL REFORM •NEED FOR 1 REVISION (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, August 15. It remains to the credit of the late Mr James. McCombs, wlio passed away a little more than a week ago, that in Parliament and out lie urged'for years upon the people of this • country a system pf voting ' which would have given' them practically the prec.se mea* sure of representation to which they were • entitled: One or two paragraphs from the pen of this active thinker and tireless worker will not be inopportune jUgt now. • ■ •

‘‘lu 1911 there were thirty second ballots at the "general election and in twenty-one of tliese ballots the leader in the first ballot also was the leader 1 in the second ballot,” Mr McCombs wrote:'“Of the nine electorates where an alteration did take place three seats went to each of the three parties; but. the important point is that the second ballot in 1911 did not prevent a minority party coming into office. One difficulty is .that in single member constituencies one man may win with a majority of 100, while another man may win with a majority of 5000, and the party to which the latter belongs gets no' advantage, from the large majority. With single member constituencies: it is better for a party to have a majority 0 f 500. spread over live electorates than to. have a: majority of 5000 on one electorate.” “In thii last Parliament (1928) there were five European members with a total of 35,720 votes/ and they had no. more voting power than five otheri Europeans. The first five had majorit-; iea totalling'2l,4B3 votes, whereas the| majorities for the second five totalled: only 1,547. In each case the candidate secured 1 an absolute majority; consequently preferential voting would not remedy the disparity in the voting power of the 35,000 and the 18,030. j The only remedy is the multiple-mem-ber constituencies with a single trans-; ferable vote. Proportional representation is in line with what has already been achieved in New Zealand. Sir George Grey gave us manhood suffrage and later abolished plural voting. We were the first to enfranchise our I womanhood, with free and equal sufj frage. Tile next step is to translate the right to vote into a right to representation. This can be done by giv- I ing each elector an effective vote which i can be transferred and . retransferred , until it help, j to eject a representative.” “Under the majority system of ejection the minority, sometimes aggregating 47 per cent, may, election after election, fail, to secure any representation,. and be as completely disfranchised as our prisoners in gaol. The consequence .of-th is wholesale - disenf ranch- - isement is. that at,no time are we assured majority. rule.. Preferential voting for electing, members of Parliament isi not; even, a step. in .the .right direction. It. .is, indeed, a step backward. Half of Europe lias, tried and abandoned it, 1 and two-thirds of the countries ■of j of Europe and one eighth of the . population of.. the . world; are uu- J icier proportional representation. No i other major reform! made, such rapid strides, during, the last ten years as proportional representation. Representatives of . all political parties in every country where it is in operation have testified, to its value, and its fairness; to all concerned. . The right to vote has been dearly bought; but that l right has no value to nearly half of: the electors of- New Zealand because their vote does not earry with it . the right of representation.” ’ To realise how much reform * need- j ed -in New Zealand it is only necees- | ary to recall the - general election of , 1925, .when the 52 successful Reform 1 j candidates with 317,584 votes represented fewer votes by 46,044 than did/ the Labour party with 184,616, the i Liberal party with 164,412, and the j Independent' party - with '12,600 votes together.