TEN SEATS IN PARLIAMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 53, 25 May 1927, Page 8

TEN SEATS IN PARLIAMENT

GREATER AUCKLAND’S ADVANCE SOUTH YIELDS SEATS TO NORTH GUSATEK Auckland is now split up amongst ten electorates —eleven if the new Mercer district, which embraces Otahuhu and Papatoetoe, be counted in with the number. The two new electorates created by the latest re-adjusi-ments are both in the Auckland province, and one of them, Auckland South, is a compact urban area within the city itself.

'VJ'OT since 1917, when Roskill was - created, has Auckland had a new electorate, but in the interim the existing districts have been re-moulded considerably. Even now the formation of an extra electorate for the whole of New Zealand has not been found advisable

and the two new electorates rise from the ashes of old ones. Ashburton and Ohinemuri. Ashburton is the South Island seat held by the Hon. W. Nosworthy, and its demise is a pointed acknowledgment of the population’s drift to the North. In 1874 the North Island had only 37.37 per cent, of the Colony’s population. The percentage rose from 50.54 in 1901 to 60.81 in 1921, and 63 per cent, to-day. Auckland’s Advance Of the population of the whole Dominion, a good third is in the Auckland Province, but of the 76 Parliamentary electorates there are as yet, even with the new seat, only 24 within the Auckland provincial boundaries. This number, taking In Waitomo and Gisborne, which impinge on the Auckland territory. In addition there is the Northern Maori seat. Auckland City itself has been amassing population so steadily that a new electorate was bound to come. It now possesses Waitemata, Eden, Grey Lynn, Manukau, Roskill, East. West, Central, South and Parnell, with the new Mercer electorate Immediately adjoining. For several years the Auckland Province, with a 40 per cent, increase between 1911 and 1921, has been leading the way in accumulation of population. The city itself has been gaining just as rapidly.

Partly under the stimulus of the Southern connection established by the Main Trunk lihe, the population of the city, exclusive of urban boroughs, rose from 40,536 in 1911 to 51,712 in 1921. In the latter year the population of Greater Auckland was 157,757. It is now right on 200,000. South's Lost Electorates In ten years the South Island has now lost three electorates, transferred to the North. One of these was Roskill, formed in 1917, and another was Hamilton (1922), while the latest is Auckland South. Both the seats to go out in the latest readjustment are good Refbrm strongholds, which fact suggests that the partiality suspected in former revisions has been entirely absent here. Mr. Samuel, it will be granted, is particularly unfortunate in losing Ohinemuri, which has been absorbed by an extension of the boundaries of adjoining districts. Thames yields much of its western territory to the new electorate, Mercer, and Auckland West retains Great Barrier, which was quite illogically handed over to it from Waitemata, which in turn had acquired it from Thames. Eden has been given some of the Waitemata country, and the latter electorate is now more exclusively urban in character. Barometer of Progress Following in the wake of the census, electoral re-distributions constitute

an unfailing barometer of progress or decline, and in the latest reading Auckland has no cause for dissatisfaction.

With 22 Parliamentary seats, against Wellington’s 16, Canterbury’s 13 and Otago’s 12, it is much the most populous of the provinces and no limit to its progress is yet apparent.