THE ELECTIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1920, Page 8

THE ELECTIONS.

FREAKS OF THE BALLOT. (Special Correspondent). Wellington, Jan. 15. The result of the returning officer's official count in connection with the recent general election justifies to" a large extent the hard things that have been said about the "first past the post" system by disappointed candidates and voters during the last week or two. The returning officer does not, of course, indicate the party colour of the candidates, but taking the candidates own declarations of their policy we find that 200.4C1 votes elected forty-four Reformers, 196,837 twenty-two Liberals and Liberal Laborites, 127,02(1 eight Official Laborites and 12,345 two Independents, Mr S. G. Smith, the member for Taranaki, M. W. A. Veitch, the member for Wanganui, and Mr E. Kellett, ■ the member for Dunedin North, are accepted in these as Liberal-Laborites, while Mr W. D.. Lysnar, the member for Gisborne, and Colonel Mitchell, the member for Wellington South, are regarded as Independents. Several other successful candidates declared themselves as Independents during the election campaign, including Mr James Craigie, the member for Timaru, and Mr £ E. Statham, the member for Dunedin South, but their former attachments mav be expected to induce them to take sides in the event of a crucial division. DISPROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

Assuming the party leanings of the members of the new House to be as stated above, it took an average of 4892 votes to elect a Reform member S9ii to elect a Liberal-Labor member' lu.olo to elect an Official Labor member and 6173 to elect an Independent member. Had representation followed in proportion to the number of votes polled the new House would have consisted of 29 Reformers (28.% to be precipe) 97 Liberal-Laborites (27.55) 18 Official Laborites (17.78), and 2 Independents (1.71). But in weighing the significance of these figures in their bearing upon the strength of parties in the country, it must be remembered that opposinn force* in a number of cases supported the same candidate. In the Avon and Christchurch South contests, for instance, a comparison of the voting in 1014 and 1919 will make it quite plain that the Reformers in these constituencies, having no candidate ot their own in the Held, solidly supported the Official Labor candidates. N 0 doubt Liberals in a similar position did the same thing but it is not so easy to drop upon flagrant examples of their adherence to the practices of the partv game. It is safe to say, however, that between them the two older parties gave 20,000 or 2.).000 votes to Labor candidates and to that extent lessened their own totals in the figures under notice.

AN INDECISIVE RESULT. All this makes it abundantly clear that the election of a Parliament under the existing system of voting is an extremely haphazard business. The position appears to be. that 200,401. electors have got the Government thev desire and 33C.208 electors have not. While in a minority of 129,747 in the constituencies, Mr Massev has secured a majority of four, perhaps five or even six, in the House, without taking the Maori members into account. The country has had rule before, but never in quite such a pronounced measure as it has now, and many of the Prime Minister's own friends are deploring the clumsy operation of the ballot. They are obtaining what, comfort thev may from the reflection that a still worse muddle would have been brought about had a few score votes in Canterbury been cast the other way. The rapture of the Kaiapoi, Temuka and Waitaki scats saved Mr Massey from returning to the House with a majority of no more • than one and facing an Opposition that probably would have .given Tiim 110 quarter. Electoral Reformers are praying that his narrow escape'may remind him of certain promises concerning "a better system than the second ballot'' he made to them on the threshold of his ministerial career.