ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2000, 8 February 1907, Page 2

ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES

“It all turns upon the wording of tlio Act,” said Mr. Quick, a member of the Representation Commission, when I called upon him last evening (telegraphs the Wellington correspondent of the Hawke’s Bay Herald) to ascertain the position in regard to tlio alleged injustice done to the South Island in the matter of Parliamentary representation. “There has been only one difficulty,” he added, “and it has always been met in the one way, both in regard to the South Island and North Island. The nominal population of the colony (under the 28 per cent, addition mentioned in the Act) is 1,180,100, and the number of members is 76. The nominal population of the North Island is 653,735, so that the number of members for the North Island is 40.6. The nominal population of the South Island is 474,362, which leaves the number of members 35.4. These figures give the exact number of the Parliamentary representation for the North and the South Island respccr lively. As the numbers arc not even, the question of tlie question of too decimal has to be decided, and ever since the automatic method was established, there lias always been this difficulty with regard to tlie decimal point. The practice, it is the only fair way, has always been to allot the extra member to tlie Island with the greater decimal in population . In tlie past the South Island, at, all events in some cases, has had tlio advantage, and the North Island lias not grumbled. Now that tlio North Island has tlie advantage the South Island complains.” Mr. Quick is emphatic that the plan adopted is only Way in which tlie matter at issue can he Sometimes the South Island will have the ;k. tage, and sometimes tlie Nortli Island' will have it. The representation commissioners cannot ignore tlie decimal. Now when the North has the advantage it is a little ungenerous of the South to grumble,

“Indeed,” said Air. Quick, “this is the first time there has been any row

about it.” It is, be says, the old provincial spirit assorting itself. Tlie South Island people now or p not considering the interests of. tlie colon v as a whole, but. arc thinking of tlio South Island as against the North Island, as if Cook Straits formed a barrier. As a matter of fact, as Mr. Quick points out, community of interest cannot bo outlined by Cook Straits. For instance, the Wellington province has more community of interest with tlio West Coast "than the West Coast lias with tlie East Coast of the South Island. Similarly the Southern part of tlio North Island, Wellington to Wanganui on the West, and Wellington to Napier on the East, has more comliiunitv of interest with the South Island than it has with Auckland; indeed, it is in daily touch with the South Island by means of tlie ferry steam service, sometimes by two or threo steamers n day.