SYSTEMS OF VOTING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9079, 1 May 1908, Page 7

SYSTEMS OF VOTING.

(By Frank Morton.)

The system of block-voting at •elections always seemed to me to bo essentially a silly and dangerous system. It means that a country may .be, and in effect generally is, governed by a bare majority of its citizens. It means, in th« extreme case, that a thousand men do what they will ■with the laws; while 999 men are .left without representation. This seems to me to be grossly unfair to the 999, who should be worth at least some consideration. Over in Tasmania I had a fairly close, and intimate experience of the Hare System, and I have never ceased to wonder how it is that the system is not generally adopted by intelligent; communities. Under the Hare System, no vote is lost. The poll fairly represents the various political opinions of the electors. The electorates are large. Say thai, in a certain electorate the Government has a following of two-thirds of the voters, .and there are three members to be "returned. Under the liare System, the Government will return two men, and the Opposition one. The thing f works with scientific certainty. I never saw an election under the Hare , System that was not, in the result, absolutely representative of the opinions and desires of the electors—in so far, that is, as one could judge on broad indication?. Under the block-vote system, the Government, : in such a case as v/e have assumed, would take three seats; ami it would still take three seats, if its majority were only eight-fifteenths of the whole. The Hare System, in short, gives proper and adequate representation to minorities, and, if it is oncn conceded that minorities have any rights at all, the bloek-vu'e system is a sort of outrage.

But you may ask me, reasonably enough, how it is, these things being so, that Tasmania abandoned the Hare System. Partly bi-causo the mob is an ass, To vote under the Hare System is a thing entailing' the exercise ot n little oommonsense and care. The voters numbers the candidates on hia voting paper in the order of bis preference. That's ail. But the mob argued that thus was a complicated system. It was assumed that men who had had at least a rudimentary education, and had acquired sufficient shrewdness to go about their ordinary avocations without accident, could not be trusted to mark a voting-paper 1, 2, li. The labour unions on the East Coast and in the cities were organizing, and the one thing they couid appreciate and value was the lighting-weight cf an absolute majority. They were perfectly frank. They could see no reason at all why minorities should have representation. Their mission as they realized it, was to coerce and dominate.: minorities. They held that democracy meant the overthrow. of minorities: the establish ment of government of the people, for a majority of the people, by a majority of the .people. They were perfectly consistent when they got into Parliament. Regarding the University as a sort of appanage of the minority, the/ tried over and over again to block the University vote. And so it was in other matters. But I would not have you think that the labour unions were largely instrumental in the overthrow of the sane system. They were not: they had not power ■enough at the time. The folly of the mob was the chief factor; and behind the mob was Vandemonia's inveterate dislike and distrust of a ■new thing. The thinking politicians of Tasmania, headed by Mr Justice Nicholla, were strong supporters of the Hare System to the last. Anyhow, I hold to my contention. The Have System, if introduced to New Zealand, would be a tremendous power for good. We are becomng far too indifferent to the overthrow of •our minorities, and in our indifference we are becoming sadly blind to certain facts and tendencies.