WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 October 1922, Page 8

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

.ELECTORAL REFORM. THE PRIME MINISTER’S ATTITUDE. I —... (Special Correspondent.) It seems that Mr. Massey’s attitude, past and present, towards electoral reform, and particularly towards proportional representation, will form one of the chief counts in the indictment the Opposition will level against the Government during the approaching election campaign. There are a number of indications that this will be the case. The abortive negotiations between the leader of the Liberal-Labour Party and the militant section of the Labour Party, to take one of them, were instituted by the ardent advocates of proportional representation with a view to making their panacea for all the ills of the .body politic practically the only issue, so far as the Opposition was concerned, at the polls in December. The idea was that by abstaining from votesplitting the two parties should secure

a majority in the new House favourable to the reform, and, after passing the necessary legislation to give effect to their aspirations l in this respect, should again appeal to the constituencies. That scheme failed because a majority of the members of the Lib-eral-Labour Party were averse even to the appearance of any sort of association with militant Labour, and the only result of the movement was to provide the Reformers with a rather feeble election cry. THE DEAD PAST. But neither the Liberals nor the Labourites are allowing this failure to discourage them in attempting to make party capital out of electoral reform. Towards this end they have material and to spare in the Prime Minister’s own utterances in regard to the subject. In the memorable speech Mr. Massey delivered in the Wellington Town Hall on the eve of the general election of 1911, which marked the beginning of the revival which ultimately carried the into office, the leader of the party definitely pledged himself to electoral reform on the lines of proportional representation. “If reform was necessary in the House of Lords,” the widely distributed official summary of his words ran. “it was twenty times more necessary in the ease of our Legislative Council. The system of appointment for a term of seven years was unsatisfactory. He could not understand any .country allowing such a body to make laws. On behalf of his party he suggested reform by replacing the present nominative Council with one elected on the same franchise as the Rouse of Representatives, on the proportional system of voting by larger electorates.” This of course, did not commit Mr. Massey and his friends to the application of proportional representation to the House; but- there was more to follow. “A SOUND PRINCIPLE.” Earlv in the session of 19]'!. when Mr. Massey had been in office for nearly three years. M.r Veitch introduced a Bill to make the House elective under

the system which would give proportional representation, and the Prime Minister speaking in the second readme- debate =aid in effect, he had no doubt the principle of proportional representation wax xonnd nnf ] eventually would be applied to all nopular assembles in progressive '■■•"ntrios; but ho thought it would- in ? 7 ’ier to trv the system in the Legis)nT;r ( . Council before introducing it to the Rouse. The Bill was rejected by four or five votes, one i or two of the Government’s supporters voting with the minority, and a little ®iter the Bill applying proportional rei presentation to the Legislative Council, i piloted through the nominated Chamj her by Sir Francis Bell, made its apj pearance in the Rouse and in due : course reached the Statute Book. Up to i this point Mr. Massey had done nothing to stultify himself in connection with his promises. Re had fulfilled his election pledge. RECANTING.

Rut in applying proportional representation to the Legislative Council the Prime Minister had taken care that the Reform s-lwuld not have full effect for six years and that in the interval his own nominees to the Chamber should .hold the balance of voting strength. This meant, in practice, that the Council, with the power of nomination gone, would be dominated by Reformers during the lives of two Parliaments, no matter what might happen at the two intervening general elections. This- -obviously was a party ruse, though perhaps not a very heinous one. and 'the fact explains why the members of the Libera]-Labour Party offered strenuous opposition to the passage of the measure and stipulated for its suspension on the formation of the National Cabinet. Their objection was not to proportional representation hut to the methods of its application. Of more immediate consequence just now, however, is the fact that Mr. Massey has recanted and is no longer favourable to the application of the system to either Chamber. The pecularity about this reform is that it never is in favour with the party in power. The occupants of the Treasury Benches always prefer the system that ba.s put them there.