THE REFERENDUM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9174, 25 August 1908, Page 4

THE REFERENDUM.

If Sir Joseph Ward wants to give the electors an opportunity to make their voices heard on points of policy, he should turn his attention to the preparation of. a comprehensive Referendum Bill. In several of the American States as many as a dozen questions are referred to the electors at one poll, and there is no reason, remarks the "Lyttelton Times," why the same thing should not be done here. Next December, while electing members to the Home of Representatives, we might decide whether No-License should be carried by a bare majority or by a three-fifths majority, whether religious instruction should be imparted in our public schools or whether the teaching should remain purely secrlar, whether Crown tenants should have the right to obtain the freehold of their te.-tions at the original value or the present value, and whether grand juries should be retained or abolished. There are a good dozen questions that could be decided in this way, but ir. is idle to talk of ret erring them to the electors when the electors have no effective means of making their views known.