COUNTRY QUOTA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 October 1938, Page 4

COUNTRY QUOTA

ITS VALUE TO RURAL AREAS. PRIME MINISTER’S RETICENCE. (To the Editor.) Sir, —What is the country quota? Many people are ignorant of this mystic quotation. Well the country quota to the country people is the most precious thing they have in a political sense. The effect of interfering with this quota is that it would spell the end of rural residents having an adequate say in the government of the country. To alter the quota will be to transfer the control of Parliament to the industrial areas in the towns entirely. As an example, if the quota were altered to provide that each Dominion electorate was to contain an equal number of electors, a small city area containing 15,000 electors would elect one member of Parliament and a country electorate which would have to embrace a very large' area to make up its 15,000 would be entitled to elect one member. The inference here is that the country representation would be seriously dominated by the city electorates to the extent of probably 4 to 1. Country electors should see to it that this is not interfered with. On Friday, September 23, the Hon. Adam Hamilton challenged the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, Prime Minister, to give an assurance that in the event of Labour being returned to power the country quota would not be interfered with. Mr Savage has not replied there is a reason. The country quota has never been favoured by the militant trades unions and they have “the say.” In the “Standard” it is clearly announced that Mr James Roberts and Mr David Wilson, of the Labour Federation, were responsible with Mr Savage for the Labour Party’s manifesto. Many Labour candidates when questioned on this matter have equivocated —throughout the Dominion. Need one say more? Country electors should vote National and preserve their liberty.—l am, etc., NATIONAL FARMER. Carterton, October 12.