The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1917. GOVERNMENT BY NOMINATION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 20 February 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1917. GOVERNMENT BY NOMINATION.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News).

What justification two political I

parties, who happen to be entrusted with the government of this country, has for interfering with the ordinary course of the electoral laws, is not quite obvious. It seems that any attempt to deprive a constituency of its right to the full exercise of the franchise must result in evil rather than good. The limitation of political privileges provided by law, is pregnant wuh all the elements that cause dissension, and it was a serious blunder for the National Cabinet to imagine that they could, by any compact they might make with each other, predispose any constituency to forego its privilege to select the representation of its choice. The party machinery of two or more opposing political parries may be so attuned as to agree that no organised party influence shall bo exercised in securing tile election of any particular person, but it is going a long step further in telling a constituency that there must be no exercise of their political rights. but that they must elect the man thai is selected for them, whether he be one of their number or whether he comes from the furthermost ends* of the country. Electors are virtually told that they must abandon nil right they have to the franchise, except that of being driven liks sheep :.' the polling booths to put in "v '■' " that has been selected for them. i'heso breaches cf precedent and cm " ,i !uiir.:;a] rich! are send to be pardonable, and they are even justified, b-.cr.use or the war, but it is not quire r'mr where the advantages come in or putting a mnn to represent a constituency by Ministerial agreement i -her than by the lawful method, the v andnte of the people. To elect in p'f-bpr case all the electoral 'mac-hilTSry . • the country has to be put in motion, therefore the nice little arrange-

mcnt for a ministerial happy family cannot have been the outcome cf economic considerations. it is dangerous for the people to relinquish any of the power gained in the battle of the ages for political freedom at the plausible behests of any sectional leader, or of a combination of sectional leaders. To tinker with the franchise is to invito forceful and vigorous resentment. While* the masses in Britain are struggling for a full and complete universal suffrage, wha-.

been gained here should be jealously guarded. The agreement between leaders that there shall bo no election during- the war is an attempt to infringe the rights of electors, makingMinisterial will superior to the will of the people. This arrangement worked tolerably well at the Pahiatua by-elec-tion, although it was productive of considerable heart-burnings, "out Hawke's Bay will have none of it. Dr. Findlay is the Ministerial medicine prescribed by Cabinet for that constituency; the Hawke's Bay Liberals, however, don't like the political odour of it, and they are taking that which appeals more to their political sense. S.'r John Findlay has been made to believe by the leaders in Wellington that open arms were awaiting Rim in Hawke's Bay, but he arrived there to find that the Liberal Party's organisation, unity and cohesion, was distinctly opposed to what he had been told. He had been induced to consent to nomination by assurances numerous and influential, and it is unfortunate for Sir John that these influential assurances had little virtue just where it was most desired. He told the Hastings people that, in view of abnorma: conditions due to the war the Hawke's Bay election should be run rather on national lines than on local"lines, but such special pleading did not appeal to either their ear or their intelligence. They could not quite distinguish where Sir John's logic came in. It did not appear to them that representation by a man of their choice had anything whatever to do with acting in opposition to the national interest. In fact they seem to think that the national interst will be better served by a represenative that is elected by popular will, than it is by a man selected by Cabinet leaders in Wellington. The Hawke's Bay electors see their duty plainly; the meaning of the electoral laws is established

iii their minds by history and precedent, and they do not need or'desire the dictation of Cabinet Ministers, or any other respectable authority or opinion, to guide them in the exercise of their political rights. This is a commendable attitude, for, if history has taught anything, it is that the people should guard most jealously the privileges and freedom that are now theirs by Act of Parliament. Plausible representations might involve conditions resulting in irreparable mischief and institute precedents for future interference with the lawful exercise of political will. Therefore the determination of the Hawke's Bay constituency, whether it even a: ally elects the Cabinet nominee o: not, to fully exercise its political rights may be regarded as an indication that New Zealand electors are distinctly opposed to any trespassing on their right to v. free and untrammelled wielding of the franchise.