WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 July 1919, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

> the pouticab aproKfil >■ DONFLICTINQ / (From Our Special Corresp^ffiaiSEy* Wellington, Julytt ; The Dominion returns this morning- ft its lament over the party strife wSiek' threatens to deprive the country of "Ui» more responsible elements in Pariia* went" and hand it over to the expo" ncnts of ",the revolutionary and cal doctrines" that are abhorrent -to every broad-minded, loyal-hearted mem* ber of the community. "What i* to follow on the dissolution of the National Government, should that occur, as it il expected to, in the comparatively near future, ia largely a matter of conjecture," it says, "but it is certain that politicians are lagging far behind the march of publio opinion in the matter of obliterating pre-war party lines in so far as they were arbitrary and artificial and adopting more rational methods." The politicians alone, it seems, an jisponsible for this state of affairs. The average, thoughtful elector, this authority declares, certainly regards with disgust tho idea of reconstructing parties on the lines that existed before the war, ELECTORAL REFORM.

Incidentally the Dominion quotes a letter from Ml. H. F. von Haast, which was published on Saturday, in which this former stalwart of the Reform fturty deprecates the "first plant the post" system of voting and urges the use of' "the alternative vote" at the approaching election, with a view to obtaining a fair expression of the will of the people. Mr. von Haas,t thinks publio opinion "has not yet been adequately converted to proportional representation," and the Dominion contends "public opinion is not yet adequately converted to any ohange in .the voting system." This, it concedes, may be only a temporary state of. affairs, but it is inclined to believe when the country really awakens to the need for reform it will not Btop short of the institution of proportional representation with grouped constituencies. It is, however, opposed .to any hasty change. The technical difficulties, it says, ore . "probably inseparable" and the general success, "almost certainly," would he marred by more or less serions detail blundersLABOR'S VIEWS.

A member of the Labor Party, not one of , the revolutionary and anarchical spirits of the organisation, when Interviewed to-day about these matters, §aid nothing would please the electors with whom lie was associated better than .to see the political parties in the country reduced to two. Sooner or later this would come about. The extreme Conservatives might stand aloof from either party at one end, and the extreme revolutionaries at the other, but there would be no need to take either of these fragments into ancount. Their numbers would be few and they would do little to influence the course of elections. It was ridiculous to say that no difference of consequences remained between eane, loyal people. A number of eminently "ane, loyal people recently gathered ,toaether and framed a political platform in which the reversion to quinquennial Parliaments was one of the principal planks. That surely proved conclusively enough that sanity and loyalty were not jthe last words in political controversy. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. The local advocates of proportional representation, whose activities, like those of other political people, were expended during tho war, declare that both Mr. von Haast and the Dominion have done lees than justice to their pet reform. It is absurd, they say, when Sir Joseph Ward has accepted it as part, of his policy and Mr. Massey has admitted it to be the best system of olection, to write as Mr. von Hnas.t does of public opinion not being "adequately to proportional representation- Public opinion, they claim, for years has been ready for the change, and but for the timidity of tho politicians would have adopted it long ago. As for von. Haast's system of alternative voting, It is only a delusion and a snare, possessing most of the defects of the "tint past the post" system and one or two others besides. Its purpose is to deprive minorities, however large, of all possibility of representation, while their system, as its name implies, ensures the equitable representation of both minorities and majorities.