WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 May 1920, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS

SIR JOSEPH WARD. OBSERVATIONS IN AUSTRALIA. (Special Correspondent.) A sharp attack of sciatica which kept him indoors for a fortnight ( interfered with Sir Joseph Ward's enjoyment of his trip to Australia, but he. hijs. returned to Wellington ia excellent Jjealth and spirits and with very pleasant jecol'lec l ' tions of the kindness and, hospitality showered upon Lady Ward and himself by their Sydney friends. • Owing to his indisposition and his obligation." to re-" turn to New Zealand for the l'rince of Wales' visit, lie was unable to get sicroiSs to Melbourne, but he met sevetal of his Victorian friends and was glad' to hear from them oji the prosperity their State was enjoying. New South Wales Tvas in scarcely so happy a condition. The' prolonged drought, of which very little had been heard on this side of the Tas-' man Sea, was really a very serious mat-' ter and had gravely affected all the rural industries. This, coming at a time when the State was confronted with all its war problems, was most unfortunate, but with its marvellous resources and its wonderful powers of recuperation New South Wales never ha 3 occasion for de l spoudency and was displaying none now. NEW SOUTH WALES ELECTIONS.

Sir Joseph described the political situation in New South Wales are interesting and perplexing—interesting to the onlookers and perplexing to those involved' in its complexities. Tile' close balance of parties in the State Parliament probably represented nearly enough the divisions of opinion in the country, though it was quite possible the abstination of an unusually large number of people from recording their votes at the recent election had affected one side more than it had affected the other. The demand that the elector should. indicate the whole of his preferences on .the ballot paper, even when there were as many as twenty candidates or move, in addition to leading hundreds of people to abstain from voting, liad produced an enormous crop of informal votes. Thousands of people with strong party prejudices, and with littV understanding of proportional representation, simply refused to give even n fifteenth or a twentieth prefnrence. to a candidate of whom they disapproved. The result was that they either did not go to the polls at all. or made a mess of their ballot paper,; when they got the.re.