Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1911. THE "INIQUITOUS THREEFIFTHS."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10217, 19 April 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1911. THE "INIQUITOUS THREEFIFTHS."

The No-license Convention, held this week at Palmerston North, passed a resolution urging that only those candidates for Parliamentary honours should be supported who are willing to substitute the bare majority for the present "iniquitous threefifths majority" on the licensing question. It seems probable, therefore, that the licensing question will again play an important part in the political campaign of New Zealand. This is very much to he regretted, as the larger national issues are apt to ■be obscured by an issue which, though important in its way, is nob of vital concern to the electorates. A No-lioense supporter has every right, of course, to insist that this question shall be determined by a bare majority of the people. And no man claiming to be a Democrat can. consistently refuse to concede the principle ol the bare majority. There are, however*, other important considerations which: should weigh with electors in a Parliamentary election. Is it possible that men and women would waive all other conditions—character, intelligence; and capacity for framing humanitarian legislation—for that of the bare majority on the. licensing question? Imagine a man who is morally depraved, politically corrupt,

and intellectually deficient, seeking the suffrages of the electors on the plea that, if elected, he would grant the hare majority! Such a proposition were at once intolerable.. On the eonverse, would it not he a national calamity if the electors were to reject men of high moral character, and mental attainment, simply because they conscientiously believed that the application of the Democratic principle to the No-license question was wrong? The affairs of the Dominion are in a parlous condition just now. There is need for the development of a patriotic party which will place the interests of the country before those of self. Are the aims and aspirations of such a party to be thwarted because of the hare majority test? It is to be hoped not. At the same time, the No-license people have a right to expect that every candidate who claims to he a Democrat shall pledge himself to he true to his principles. They are quite justified, all other things being equal, in voting for the man who will see- that the bare majority is conceded on the Nolicense question. And in this connection it is matter for comment that the party which has for years posed as Democratic has studiously opposed every attempt to apply the principle to the one and only issue which is submitted to a plebiscite of the people. It would foe a grave calamity, however, if the sole test of a candidate's fitness for Parliamentary honours were to be his attitude towards the bare majority on the licensing question.