THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1913. THE SECOND BALLOT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 14 November 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1913. THE SECOND BALLOT.

Those wlio know anything of the circumstances under which the Secon=,' Ballot Act was placed upon the Statute Book of New Zealand, or who have witnessed the log-rolling and political immorality that have been practised under its-silly- provision*:, will treat with contempt the obstruction raised by tho Opposition against, the repeal of that useless and exclusive piece of legislation. To show the hyprocrisy of Sir Joseph Ward and his followers, it need only be stated that at the last polls the so-called "Liberals" made the repeal of the Second Ballot Act a plank in their political platform, and made no ['retensions whatever to substitute it by another measure. The Christ;;hm'cn Press deals succinctly with the matter in an article in which it says -- "Everyone knows, and nobody speaking soberly and with a sense oi: responsibility would deny, that any electoral system fs better than the second ballot. As' we shall presently show, it does not upon the wholeproduce results different from the results of the old simple majority system which the 'Liberals' maintained and approved for seventeen years, and then abandoned only because they thought that the second ballot would assist them. But it produces a, corrupting effect upon the public conscience and promotes .?cious and immoral bargaining. The member for Avon appears to have made some remarkable mis-ota:c-ments concerning the results that

would have boon produced by the 1908 and 1911 elections if the second ballot had not been in operation. In 1911, he said, if there had been no second ballot, 'fhirty candidates would have been returned who did not possess - the confidence of a majority of the people.' Mr Russeii never did earo much for facts, but this particular statement is really more than can be permitted oven to h:in. .Actually, there, were thi.ty second ballots in 1911, and in tweuvyone cases tho member who was finally successful had headed the poll at tho first ballot. If, that is to say, thevo had been no second ballot, sixtyseven out of the seventy-six members actually elected would have been elected all the -same. Nor is this all. Had there been no second ballot, the state of parties would have been exactly the same as they are. The only result of the .second ballot, from this standpoint, was to cut down the 'Liberal' Party by three and give tlo same number of seats to Labour. In 1908 there were twenty-three second ballots, and only in eight cases was the candidate who had headed the poll at the first ballot eventually unsuccessful. Of these twenty-three seats the ilcform Party won nine; it would have held eight of them had there been no secojud ballot. To talk therefore of minority representation being re-established by the repeal of the (second ballot is to talk what the facts show to be rubbish. In any event, the Opposition will find it exceedingly difficult to . convince the

country that any consideration should prevent the repeal of a system which we arc. all agreed is qiiite vicious and must be repealed whatever happens. They will find it still more difficult to establish an agreement between their present attitude and their oft-repeated denunciations of the system."