WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 80, 3 April 1916, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

electoral reform. business' op session. (Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON, March 31. The delay in announcing the results of the Tasmanian general'election and the prediction that when they are announced they will reveal another deadlock between the parties have given the opponents of proportional representation an opportunity to reiterate their familiar gibes against the reform-. "If it takes Tasmania with its 100,000 or its 110,000 electors a week or ten days to allot the votes recorded at a general election," they ask, "how long would it take New Zealand with its 540,000 or 550,000 electors?" "And if the task could be completed in a month," they go on, if their victim hesitates for a moment, "what guarantee should we have that the deadlocks which have become chronic in Tasmania would'not become chronic here?" The first question, probably unknown to the majority of the critics, obtains some point from the fact that the Legislative Council Act, which is now suspended somewhere between Heaven and earth by agreement between the parties, provides the very system of counting the votes which is proving so cumbersome and tedious in the island State. The members of the Reform Government started out to redeem their pledges in regard to the Council without even a rudimentary knowledge of the first principles of proportional representation, but the term sounded fine and large and as the measure made its stormy way through Parliament Sir Francis Bell, its author, acquired some considerable facility in handling the technicalities of the subject. This, however, did not save him from the mistakes into which the Tasmanian reformers had fallen and the Act as it now stands probably would produce the same untoward results here if it were brought into operation.

MENDING REFORM. The defect cf the Tasmanian electoral law is that it provides for such refinements in the distribution of contingent votes that only the highly trained mathematical mind can explain or hope to understand its complications. That the machinery produces absolutely accurate results no one has ventured to dispute—perhaps because none save the elect can fellow its working—but Lord Courtney's system reduces the possibility of error to the merest fraction and in practice has proved so simple and effective that no community that has tried it w.ou'd think of following Tasmania in its maze of intricacies. The Hon. George Fcwlds, who must be ac-cepted-as the best local authority on the subject, is strongly of opinion that the Legislative Council Act, which he regards as a very excellent measure in many respects, will be killed by its own weight if it is allowed to come into operation with the Tasmanian system cf counting the votes as part of its machinery. He is not biased in favour of bis own Bi 1 of five years ago, which was hurriedly prepared pimply to promote discussion, but he thinks even that, proposal with all its crud'.tifi's would bo bettor than a meaF vrp that could rot bfi readily undero+nr'i pv the nporle A s for d3°dlocks, if followed an election conducted under prooortional ti-n. thev ■n r on"d be the propp.r r>nd logical sequel to an enual division of opinion among the electors. They are not peculiar to proportional representation, as we have seen in this

country, and they are not necessarily an unmitigated evil.

BOARD OF TRADE. I People here who are hoping to see the Board of Trade becoming something more than a buffer between the Government and the public have read the report of Mr. W .P. McDonald's remarks in Christchurch yesterday with much satisfaction. Mr. McDonald, as his friends like to put it, "knows his job," having mastered the theory of economics at college and acquainted himself with their practice during a strenuous professional life. If anyone can show the Government good cause for putting its promises concerning the cost of living into effect he can and he has the courage as well as the ability to express his own opinions plainly. Of course,, the members of the Board are not alone in realising that the war has "upset many old theories," but it will be comforting to the sorely-tried houseAvife, if she ever gives a thought to such things, to learn that Mr. McDonald and his colleagues believe some of the text books would bear revision -in the light of recent developments. Evidently the Government wishes the Board to do something before the meeting of Parliament, if only to provide a reply to the criticism that is sure to be directed against its late appointment, and it very properly has begun with an enquiry into the prices of breadstuffs, which in Wellington, at any rate, ar e rapidly mounting to the level of last year when the Prime Minister himself believed the country to be on the verge of a wheat famine. WAR BUSINESS ONLY.

It must be with abounding faith in tho efficacy of affirmation or with an admirable sense of Cabinet proprie-

ties that Sir Joseph Ward joins with the Prime Minister in predicting that the approaching session of Parliament will be a brief one. No doubt the Government, as Governments always do, whether National or Party, will wish to get rid of members as speedily as they can, but notwithstanding all the advantages they enjoy in controlling the business of the House Ministers will find it a little difficult to free themselves from the presence of the representatives of the people till they have had their say on a variety of- subjects. Sir Joseph has got his own department into such good shape during the seven or eight months he has been in office that the finances of the country are not likely to provide a vast amount cf matter for debate, but e ven if the session is devoted to "war business only," as Ministers urge it should be, it may run easily into two or three months and possibly into more. Everything political is war business in these days because everything political affects more or less intimately the one great problem of the hour, and if this member wished to discuss the currency question, another State enterprise, and a third electoral reform they all could claim to be within the accepted limitation. But without straining after any indulgence of this kind members will find plenty of excuses for talking in the legislation foreshadowed by Mr. Massey and their constituents will expect them to take advantage of them. The country is not so well satisfied with the National Cabinet that it will wish Ministers to be spared from all criticism and its representative in Parliament are not feo confident of their own positions that they will forego such a chance for self advertisement.