ELECTORAL REFORM.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 142, 3 May 1879, Page 3

ELECTORAL REFORM.

The Wellington ‘Post’ of April 29 says : —Although no ex cathedra announcement has been made as to the nature "of the Electoral Reform Bill which the Government are understood to be pledged to introduce at the incoming session, various statements have found currency, which there is reason to believe represent tolerably the intentions of the Cabinet. We believe that the new electoral scheme to be proposed by Ministers will be based upon the principle of a residential and rating franchise, freehold, leaseholders’ and householders’ qualification being wholly omitted, because partly included in the others, which are so elastic as to extend the suffrage to many who could not obtain it under any of the three qualifications now profosed to be rendered obsolete. For instance, a household qualification is in this measure included within the residential, but the latter would embrace also the lodgers who, under the residential principle, would obtain all the benefits of a lodger's franchise. On the other hand property —freehold or leasehold—would find its interests represented under a rating franchise, which we understand will be so ordered as to allow a person to exercise a vote in each electoral district within which he may possess property. Such we believe will be the main characteristic of the new electoral system to be brought forward. With regard to redistribution of seats, the ‘Post? says it is currently reported that Ministers will bring down a specific proposal on this head, based generally on relative population. For instance, the present proportion of members to population is, roughly speaking, about one to every 6000. Many country districts are represented at the rate of a member to very much fewer people than this. However, and in order to make the change less violent, we believe the present disproportion will be reduced gradually by giving country districts and smaller places a little more than they are strictly entitled to, although much less than at present, while towns and large centres would have for the time somewhat less than their precise proportion of representation.