IS PARLIAMENT REPRESENTATIVE?

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 90, 7 December 1931, Page 3

IS PARLIAMENT REPRESENTATIVE?

Is the House of Representatives really representative of the people who eleet its members ? During- the past few weeks ths question has been asked by all sorts of people whq have received all sorts of answers. For the answer depends upon both the" point of view of the giver, and his degree of disinterestedness. To the political propagandist the ; question is a simple one, the answer depending simply upon the number of seats secured by the party he favours. If it has been unsuccessful at the polls, then the House is not representative and the system of voting should be changed, this usually being advanced as a sure means of overcoming the evil. To the non-politician, however, the question bristles with difficulties and is not to be answered lightly. Apart from those in some way connected with politics, few know personally more than two or three of the members of Parliament or have had an opportunity to hear many of them on the platform. Despite the danger of generalising from particular cases, in this instance it is permissible, to take the local member as a type. How many, it may be asked, would be prepared to say that their own member, even though their vote helped to gain, him his seat, is the man they would have chosen had they been given a free hand. Probably very few. It is not possible, of course, for each elector to choose his own representative except to a very limited extent. The man he votes for is therefore but the one he favours of those nominated. As, moreover, the decision as to who shall be nominated rests, under our present system, almost wholly with a small and more or less self-elected group, the ordinary electors' share in the decison is practically nil. There therefore seems to be more than a little .justification for the opinion that the elected chamber at least can and in fact very often does, misrepresent the mass of the electors rather than represent them. If this view is accepted, the success achieved under our present Parliamentary system bears witness to both the patience and commonsense of the people of the Dominion and to the wisdom of their elected representatives 1 This wisdom, of course, may be inspired by one of nature's most active laws — the law of selfpreservation, in which case we should all be gratef ul to nature.