Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1879. READJUSTMENT OF THE REPRESENTATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 13, 7 October 1879, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1879. READJUSTMENT OF THE REPRESENTATION.

« Notwithstanding the defeat of the Grey Government, a readjustment of the representation is certain to take place this session. The necessity for this has been so apparent during the past few years, that both sides of the House are agreed it should take effect as soon as possible. The chief point in dispute is the basis upon which the readjustment should be fixed. Should it be aggregate population, or rateable value, or material resources, or number of male adults, or revenue returned ? or should it be upon no single basis, the general and entire claims, and necessities of each district being considered? The Grey Government, as our readers know, declared in favour of the population basis, and brought in a Bill to give effect to it. But even they were compelled to recognise that such a measure would affect in an unjust manner the country districts. They therefore proposed to weight the towns to the extent of 25 per cent, over the number requited for country districts, thus snowing that the population basis, pure and simple, could not be carried into effect. The Hon. John Hall, when moving the recent noconfidence amendment, expressed himself in favour of a readjustment, but thought " it should not be altogether on the basis of population." We may therefore expect that any Bill he or his party bring in, will provide a broader and more satisfactory method of adjustment than would be found merely in population. Such a course will, we believe, commend itself to the whole body of colonists who do not happen to reside in either of the four large towns — Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, or Dunedin. The people in those cities would doubtless be exceedingly grateful to any Parliament that would confer upon them the enormous preponderance of representation they would receive under the population basis. Including their suburbs, those places contain about 1 10,000 people, being about one-fourth of the total population of the colony. To grant them a proportionate representation would be manifestly unfair, as large centres of population possess means of influencing public opinion and the " powers that be " to an extent that country districts and smaller towns cannot possibly enjoy. Thennewspapers cany greater weight; heavier pressure can be brought to bear by means of public meetings ; and a larger proportion of the leisure class reside in them ; — all of which advantages are not enjoyed to the same degree by the rural districts. The effect of the population basis would therefore be to place in the hands of the. residents of the four principal towns an undue power of influencing the councils of the Colony. But the population basis would press unevenly in other directions. For instance, the population of the city of Nelson and the County of Manawatu are about equal, but we venture to say that the interests involved, the capital invested, the capacity for settlement, the rateable value, the rate of progress, the undeveloped resources, and the revenue returned by Manawatu, combine to give it a stronger claim to a second representative than can be urged on behalf ol " Sleepy Hollow." In fact, except on the one point of population, there can be no comparison. Our argument is, that although the population in two distriots may be numerically

the same, the one set of people may re/present five times the wealth, industry, " push," and progress of the other. To place the two on a level in representative power, is therefore unfair. But another fact to he pointed out is, that the male adults are not evenly distributed throughout the Colony. In all the gold fields constituencies there is a larger percentage of adult males than in other portions of the Colony, and it would be unjust to allow females and children to cany the same representative weight as men. For instance, Nelson with a total population of 6,604, has only 1,840 adult males ; with a population of 8,728, has more adult males than Nelson, viz., 1,890. Then, again, Wallace constituency, whilst the Buller, with a total population of 2,457, has a male adult population of 1 ,169 ; whilst the town of New Plymouth, with a total population of 2,680, contains only 646 male adults. A number of other comparisons might be instituted, which would go to show that in different parts of the Colony the adult males bear a much greater proportion to the whole population than in other districts. "We will confine ourselves to one case. Boslyn, a suburb, of Dunedin, with a total population of 8,732, contains only 1,754 male adults ; whilst Hokitika, with a total population of 8,984, has a male adult population of 3,416. No argument is necessary to show that in those districts, where the male adult population is strong, the revenue returns must be greater than i;i such districts as Nelson, Eoslyn, or Taranaki, where by far greater portion are females and children. It may therefore be taken that the population basis would cause an injustice towards all the mining districts. We think we have said sufficient to show that the population basis would prove most unsatisfactory. By it large towns would receive unnecessary representation, whilst struggling and isolated districts would be in many cases entirely unrepresented, by being joined on to some other constituency which would far outvote them. The attempt to adapt old-world theories to a young country will lead to endless complication and trouble. Not population alone, but the general resources, wealth, area, rateable value, &c, should enter as elements into the claim of every district to a representative.