WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1919, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE GENERAL ELECTION. VOTING AND REPRESENTATION^. (Special Correspondent. ) r Wellington, Dee. 10. The general election is over and Mr. Massey will meet the new Parliament with a substantial majority at his back, while Sir Joseph Ward will be nmon ff the missing. All that need be said about the party leaders just pow is that the Prime Minister is accepting his success with becoming modesty and Sir Joseph his defeat with characteristic equanimity. The only regrets of the leader of the Opposition seem to be for his followers and these are expressed with warm appreciation of their loyalty and with cheery words for the future. He has been offered several seats in the House, which he probably would be allowed to take with the goodwill of the Reformers, but his present inclination is to remain in retirement till he has some clear indication from the constituencies that his services are required and desired. ELECTORAL REFORM. Meanwhile the advocates of electoral reform are emphasising one of the obvious lessons of the polling. Never before in the history of the Dominion, they declare, has the injustice of the system of "first past the post" been so flagrantly demonstrated. According to the available figures, which, of course, are subject to Rome revision, there are twenty-seven minority members in the new House, members', that is, returned by fewer than half the electors that recoided valid votes, sixteen of them being Reformers, seven Liberals, three Laborites and one Independent. Still 'more significant, accepting the figures of the local Reform organ, 192.256 Reform votes secured forty-five European seats,, 1(15.397 Liberal votes eighteen seats, 131,300 Labor votes eleven seats, Independent votes two seats, this means that an average of 4,273 Votes elected a Reform member 9777 a Liberal member, 11.836 a Labor member, and 13,893 an Independent member. THE DOMINANCE OF MAJORITIES. These figures—still quoting the advocates of electoral reform—show the inevitable dominance, in an increasing lat'o, of majorities. The party with the largest number of Votes not only g"t the majority it was entitled to by its superiority in that respect, but also a further majority of 75 per cent. Under the principle of proportional representation the strength of the parties in the new House would have been twentvseven Reformers, twentv-five Liberals, twenty Laborites and four Independents. There is such a startling difference here that it is little wonder the party m office, whatever its color mav be, lights a little shy of effecting a reform that would give every vote recorded just the representation to which it was entitled. It would be a revolution for which the average politician, at any rate, is not yet prepared. LOCAL EXAMPLES. In the six Wellington constituencies 14,291 Reform votes secured three seats, the 13,827 Liberal votes one seat, the 18,502 Labor votes one seat, and the 5,109 Independent votes one seat. It took only 4,763 votes to elect a Reform candidate. In the Canterbury provincial district, which had stood firmly by Liberalism during a period of thirty years, there was a frightful debacle among the stalwarts. But the Liberals still are the largest group in the district, though sorely reduced in numbers, and they at least should have had a first past the post majority. Instead of this they returned no more members than the Reformers did and lost seats to both the Laborites and the Independents. The facts must bring home to an increasing volume of public opinion the need for a change in the system of election.