The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, MAY 27, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5355, 27 May 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, MAY 27, 1878.

' ' ———--♦ ■' ■; _ ; .In his speech on the motion for the introduction of that mode of giving, representation in Parliament to minorities, which he called the proportionate system, Mr. Blennebh asset quoted the opinion of John Stuabt.Mill in favorof Miv Hare’s system of personal representation as giving promise of the greatest improve, ment of which the system of representative government was susceptible, and that of M. Pr.uvo.ST Pauaool, who B aid that proportional representation was to his mind as evident and almost as important an improvement upon the majority system of representative government now in vogue, as the application of steam was to industrial pursuits. As an instance' of the operation of the existing system Mr. B. showed that at the last general election the members of the existing House of Commons were returned upbu a poll of 1,593,347 votes, whilst the unsuccessful candidates received 891,8.30 votes, and that it might be said. that - out of two million and a-half of voters, one million .wereentirely unrepresented. And he further (showed that in some constituencies in which voters holding particular political viewc were in a permanent minority,, they never had a,chance of being represented in Parliament during the whole course of their lives. Another speaker during the debate, Mr. Coubtney, in-’ stanced the condition of the English Homan Catholics, wlio, a million in number, could not get, and could not hope t'o get, a single seat in England,-Wales,- or Scotland. Minorities in England worecomposed of country liberals, and urban conservatives ; and whilst recurring events

show how large in the county constituencies the liberal element was, the fact remained that amongst the 172 county members, there ’wero-- but 27 liberals, to 145 conservatives. The establishment of household -suffrage in boroughs had, Mr. Blennbehasset said, actually, placed the control of: the borough representation in England;and Scotland in the hands of the class of persons who depend on 'manual labor for their daily bread, whilst at tthe same time the ballot extinguished the influence which landlords or employers might exercise over' tenants or workmen. The extension of the household suffrage to the counties —a change which might be regarded' as' inevitable—would give to that class not merely a voice in the Government, but the absolute and exclusive control of the Government so far as complete possession of the House of Commons could give that control. But the anomaly of the existing system was that it did"not even secure to the majority of the directly represented-; electors a preponderating influence in divisions. The Unequal, distribution of electoral power which gave to electors in small and unimportant constituencies' a hundred or a hundred and fifty times more voice in the election of a member than the electors in the great constituencies,, sometimes led to the defeat of the actual electoral majority ; important divisions had recently been taken in the House of Commons in which the minority of .members represented a far greater number of electors and more important political interests than the majority represented. The view of the system by which Mr. Blennerhasset thinks the existing and threatened evils are to be remedied we give in his own words as repotted

All the conditions he had mentioned wore fulfilled in the system of personal proportional representation on which Ms motion was founded. A few words would be sufficient to indicate the leading features of that system. Every elector, wherever he resided, should have one vote. There was no adequate reason for Riving an elector because he happened to live in a particular place the right to vote for three or four members, while other electors, wlth-precisely the same qualification, were only allowed to vote for one member. Large and important constituencies were, no doubt, entitled to a greater amount of representation than other*, but the real measure of political power was not the number of members for whom an Individual elector might vote, but the number of votes necessary to return a member. The existing inequality in this respect which gave a few hundred electors in some lit lo place as much influence as many thousand electors elsewhere was a distinction out of harmony with the feelings of the time, and could not much longer be maintained. Kvery elector,therefore, should have only one vote, but lie should be allowed to make the freest possible use of the vote by giving it to the candidate whom, 0f,.a1l candidates in the country, he thought would best and most truly represent him. For this purpose votes should bo received in every locality for others as well as for the local candidates. . An elector who did . not feel that any of the local can lidates were persons in whom he could put his trust, or with whose opinions he could agree, should not be condemned to choose between disagreeable alternatives or else to refrain from voting altogether, but ho should-be allowed to exersise hispoliticalrights with the utmost liberty by giving his support to any candidate' elsewhere by whom he might prefer to be represented. Every candidate for whom a proper number of votes had been recorded should be elected. The number of voters who might fairly claim’ the right to return a member depended .on the number of members to be returned as compared with the total number of electors or of actual voters in the country. Suppose, for example, that dividing the total number of voters by the total number of members there was one member to every 4000 voters," then every candidate who received that number of votes, which had been called ‘‘ the unit of representation,” should be entitled to a seat. If, however, 4000 votes were considered sufficient to elect a member, no greater number should be counted for any candidate : otherwise the names of a few well-known and .popular public men would obtain an enormous and unnecessary number of votes. If the superflous voting papers, were entirely rejected, these votes would bo lost, and to avoid this the elector should bo allowed to put on his voting paper some other names of candidates for whom his vote could be counted in the order in which they eame, if it were not needed to make up the requisite queta for the first name. By these means every vote would be effective and every elector, having his due share of political power, would be able to contribute to the election of the candidate of his choice. Noone would any longer bo represented by a member against whom he had voted, and from whoso opinions ho differed, all constituencies would be nna nimous, and every, rninoriiy worth taking into account would be represented in due proportion to its numbers, v To secure all these advantages the only thing the elector would have to do would be to put on his voting paper the name of his local candidate, or any one else he pleased, and some other names in the order of preference to be used in case those at the head of the list did not require his aid. Tnis was absolutely all the voter would have to do. The onlv remaining process would be the sorting of the voting papers and assign-:, ing each to the name written upon it, for which it ought to be counted. The duty of the • scrutineers would be a simple mechanical process, far leas difficult than what was done every day, with ease and accuracy, in the Post Office, the clearing-house, and a thousand places of business. This is substantially the whole of the proposal-whlch-Mr. Mill endeavored to engraft on the Reform BUI of 1807, and a modified , form of which was brought before the last Parliament embodied In the provisions of a Bill introduced by Mr. Walter Morrison. Every point Of.- detail was entered info and satisfactorily dealt with by Mr. Hare in his work on the Election of Representatives. It was, however, by no means necessary to commit thenir selves to the details of Mr. Hare’s or any other plan. If the principle of independent personal representation were once accepted, it would bo easy to appoint a committee to inquire into and ascertain the manner in which it could most perfectly bo applied. Those who asserted that such a system was unworkable have to encounter the simple fact that it had been actually tried and found to work extremely well.

After combating the objections raised theoretically to representation of minorities, the speaker asserted that the system of which he had given the outline was a legitimate and necessary deduction from the fundamental principles of liberalism, which demanded the fair and equal representation of the whole people ; that it provided the most thorough and practical remedy for those evils which conservatism especially dreaded, the extinction of variety in the representation, the exclusion of rank, wealth, and culture from public life, and the absolute supremacy of tho most numerous class. The inevitable effect of the lowering of the franchise being to lower the average knowledge and intelligence of the. electoral body and thus to lower the average wisdom and respectability of the representatives of that body, the evil would bo counteracted by the power given to cultivated and enlightened minorities all over the country to oombino and elect the best men they could find, many of whom were now kept away by the iron weight of party, which crushed out independence, of action and individuality of thought, and by the growing influence of local wealth and popularity. His was an effort made to contribute to the solution of the great problem how to reconcile tho rapid and restless advance of democratic principles with the preservation of the rights and liberties of every class of the people. ' In. another place we reprint-an article from the London “Times” of the 9th March which has the characteristics of the leading journal. Whilst Mr. Blennerhassbt’s motion is condemned as unpractical and untimely because it cannot be followed'up' immediately by any legislative action, the necessity for a change is admitted, and instances in proof of that necessity are given as strong and as convincing as any of those adduced by the speakers in the course of the debate. The question affects the people of this colony gravely at this moment in view of ■the impending, change in our electoral system, and wo have availed ourselves of the report of the debate in the. Imperial Parliament to place the latest ideas about it succiriotljr before our readers. We have already-said that the subject had not been lost sight of by the late Government, audthatthe draftof aßillhadalready been prepared by tho Attorney-General "for consideration by his colleagues, when the crisis. occurred which led ;,o their resignation. We shall'take an early opportunity of giving an outline of the pro-. posal embodied in that draft. .