THE PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3038, 7 November 1908, Page 4

THE PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.

There are not a few disappointed young men, and possibly young women, who are triennially disappointed at being disfranchised through being under twenty-one years of age on the last date on which applications can be made for enrolment on the electoral roll, though as a matter of fact they may in the time intervening between that date and election day, arrive at the age of twenty-one. One disconsolate young politician who interviewed the Registrar of Electors at Master ton, said hard things of a law which deprived him of the right to" vote because he was just a day late in arriving at political manhood. It seems a hard position, and a suggestion that the law be made prospective in its application, to allow of persons being enrolled who will be twentyone by the probable date of the election, might be oonsidered by the Legislature. As the elections may pronably occur about the same date as that chosen this year, in view of the Second Ballot Act, the law might be made so that those who attained the age of twenty-one by November 30th could be enrolled, and no great harm would be done. It seems more equitable to give a junior the advantage of a few days to allow him to vote than to disfranchise him for three years because he is just a single day too young for enrolment, though j old enough by election day. If he j did not arrive at twenty-one by election day, if the date of the election were say a fortnight prior to his twenty-first birthday, it would not be a question of maturity of judgment that could justly be set up as a bar to his claim to vote, as such a plea would be tantamount to asserting that there is a political dawn of enlightment which awaits every individual's magical twenty-first natal anniversary. The line would be sufficiently drawn if an approxi- j mate majority were allowed. It is also a question now whether in these days of education—and particularly j political education —the age limit is not a year, or even two years, too high, at twenty-one. The colonial youth takes rather a lively interest in most State questions nowadays, and there are few who are not able to form a fairly clear opinion on most matters political when they are in theiVtwentieth year. That a healthy interest in such matters is for the welfare of a]country is admitted, and if£the lowering of the franchise age to, say, nineteen, only had the effcet of stimulating a keener interest in the minds of young people concerning their political rulers, the good which might be done would possibly be more than proportionate to the harm which might be done in all other directions combined.