POLITICAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 December 1922, Page 8

POLITICAL.

PREFERENTIAL VOTING. (From Our Own Correspondent.) It was generally thought in the House of Representatives at the time Mr. Massey promised to substitute “something better ’ for the second ballot that he had preferential voting in mind. The difference between the two systems was rather a difference of method than a difference of principle. With the second ballot, delay and expense were involved and opportunities for bargaining and intrigue were increased. With preferential voting the elector would complete the operation of voting on one paper on one day and his preferences would be as finally cast as were his first choice. This was the system strongly urged upon Sir Joseph Ward by many of his friends when he introduced the Second Ballot Bill and had he accepted their advice probably the system qtill would bej on the Statute Book and many heart-burnings would have been saved. More than tAis, it would have prepared the way to some extent for the introduction of the bigger reform. The marking of the ballot papers in both eases would have been precisely the name and the electors’ experience would have finally banished the popular delusion that there is something extremely difficult and intricate in indicating the order of one’s preferences in plain figures. ELECTION SHOTS.

In a speech on Saturday last, the Hon. C. J. Parr said that the most thoughtful of the Labor leaders in Great Britain had abandoned the present policy of the New Zealand Labor Party as being quite impracticable. The socialisation of land and all businesses was regarded as an idle dream. The Labor Party’s proposal, if carried into effect, would practically make every person in the State a civil servant-. That would be a ruinous thing for the country, apart altogether from the fact {•hat the civil service was not generally regarded by the employees as attractive. All businesses being nationalised, they would be run by a bureaucracy from Wellington. This would mean more centralisation, of which there already was far too much. “No Government has ever done so much for the farmer,” the Hon. J. G. Coates said at Kaukapakapa on Thursday evening. “Not one. Yet an Opposition candidate, and I believe it was m y opponent, has said that if the Government is in power for three years there will be no farmers left. What an absurd statement that is. The farmer has undoubtedly been having a hard time, but it has been due to the war and'the subsequent depression.” “The moment you mount a political platform you are a scoundrel,” was the pathetic utterance of Mr. S. M. Wren, at St. Aidan’s Hall, Parnell, which evoked a sympathetic hear! hear! followed by laiighter, when the candidate for political honors added: “I have learned so many things about myself since the campaign started that I am really getting doubtful as to whether I have lived a good life.” “We might complain of the prices of our commodities.” said Mr. Steer, a candidate for political honors at Greymouth. “But the fact remains that the higher the prices the better the position generally, because if the prices of commodities are high, wages also are high.” He remembered 45 years ago that the price of butter was 4d per lb and mutton Is a leg. Yet the country was nearer starvation then than at any period of its history. Mr. Steer, speaking of taxation, said that the more a country was taxed the less work was provided. “Why is it that the professional politician is held in contempt by the majority of people?” said Mr. C. M. Olliver at Mr. R. Macartney’s meeting at Woolston (says the Christchurch Press). “This is the reason. The professional politician, in these times of stress, instead of giving a lead, waits to see what the people want, and then promises them everything. His job hangs on his •promises.” Mr. Macartney, he added, was an amateur politician, and that was what we needed to-day. The “unwritten law” by which the Speaker of the British House of Commons is not opposed at elections was mentioned by the Mayor of Auckland (Mr. J. H. Gunson) in opening Sir Frederick Lang’s meeting at Epsom on Friday. “I think the practice followed in the British political world of not subjecting the Speaker to a contest should ’’obtain in New Zealand,” he said. “I say that advisedly. Sir Frederick, of course,* would be the last to suggest such a thing in thia young country. Probably we have not the same innate appreciation and respect as they .have in the Old Country for the high office of Speaker of the House, but it would be a good thing if we’ could inculcate in i the young people something of that ajirit *4*verenne.”