The third plank in the platform is as follows:—To promote the due registration of Parlimentary electors, true representation in Parliament, and the election of the best men available." This important plank is divisible into three parts. The first is registration. It must be apparent to all thoughtful persons that man hood suffrage is useless unless men register and exercise their votes. Many an election has been unfairly won through the names of dead men and absentees, for there is always some roll-stuffing and personation at elections. It is difficult to get some men to register. They assign many reasons against doing so. None refrain from doing it for their country's good. They by no means deem themselves unworthy of the trust and privilege, but selfishness deters them from registering.

The Reason Why.

So great a scandal has the neglect of the Parliamentary franchise become that legal disabilities are likely to be imposed on shirkers. Serve them right. They will enjoy all the benefits of good Government, and be the loudest complainers if things do not please them, but will not perform their political duty as members of the State. They "Don't want to take sides;" but they hypocritically "sit on a rail" and wish both sides success. They are like the lukewarm Laodiceans—they turn people sick As a rule they want to please both sides for fear of making an enemy or losing a customer or Government patronage, and they offend both sides.

Trustees.

Electors should remember that they are trustees, holding in trust for the nation the only power which can secure the return to Parliament of the best men available. If they do not use their powers to do that good work, they' are morally guilty of the ills the colony suffers at the hands of inferior men. The old proverb says, "Doing nothing is doing ill." Wilful neglect to thwart the murderer's thrust at his victim, or to lead the blind child off page 18 the line out of the way of the approaching train, would involve condemnation by political and moral laws, and it is equally bad to neglect to register and to vote for the best representatives available. Legislators entail weal or woe on nations. Those electors who shirk their political duties are disloyal to the constitution, unfair to other electors, and unworthy of the rights and privileges of citizenship. Registration and voting are not matters of choice but are moral obligations. Men ought to do those things, and it is now doubly necessary that all who have families and property should do so because the one-man-one-vote system gives the street-corner lounger and men with criminal instincts as much voting power as the large manufacturer, farmer, capitalist, or thrifty artisan.

True Representation.

That we have not now got true representation in Parliament must be patent to anyone who reflects. The true principle of government is the government of the whole people by the whole people equally represented. That is a very different thing from what we have got—viz., the government of the whole people by a majority of the people exclusively represented. Sometimes the elections are won by the barest majority, and an immense minority is unrepresented. The result of the last elections left certain classes and interests unrepresented. Indeed, some of those who went into Parliament would never have got there at all except for their artfully pronounced bias against certain classes and interests. By the present system the wisest and best men in the Colony get defeated by noisy, self-assertive carpet-baggers, who only take to politics for a living when all else fails them; as if, forsooth, those who cannot successfully manage their own affairs can successfully manage the more complicated affairs of the nation. What a delusion! (I except those who fail not through their own fault but through the fault of others.) But one test of a men's prospects of successfully managing the affairs of our 650,000 colonists is this: How has he managed his own affairs? Members in pecuniary embarrassment are exposed to temptations which people well off escape. The former are not their own masters, and cannot afford to be independent or to refuse office. Their very impecuniosity makes some men desperately anxious to get into Parliament, and they promise the electors impossible things to secure election. When elected they cannot hold their heads erect as among equals and be impartial to all classes.

Proportional Representation.

This question is too large for ample discussion here, and must be otherwise elaborated. Those who desire to study it will find it discussed by the late Charles Buxton in "Ideas of the Day on Policy;" by Sydney Buxton in "Political Questions of the Day;" page 14 by J. S. Mill in "Representative Government;" by Thomas Hare in "Representation;" and by Sir John Lubbock in a handy little book on "Representation." The exposition of this subject will devolve on those who feel it their duty to bring about an improvement in our present system. I am of opinion that minorities need protection and representation, and that the best form of government will not be obtained if the better taught classes and those who have most property at stake be swamped by mere numbers.

"Majorities Must Rule."

Some will exclaim: "Oh! but majorities must rule."

Must they? Not unless they are right and just.

The majority cried "Barabbas!" The majority condemned Galileo. The majority goaded America to rebellion and lost her to England. The majority has swamped Poland. The majority is sometimes unbearably tyrannical. The majority to-day may be the minority to-morrow—it frequently changes, but right is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Hence the value of the Legislative Council, which being raised above the turmoil of prejudice of the Lower House can block unjust and hasty Bills.

De Tocqueville once said: "If ever liberty is lost in America, the fault will be with the omnipotence of the majority in driving the minority to despair." Mill said that "the institution of society should make provision for keeping up . . . as a shelter for freedom of thought and individuality of character, a perpetual and standing opposition to the will of the majority." America is finding that some of her greatest dangers result from the unlimited power of the majority—it is threatening freedom of speech and civil liberty.

If a majority of the landless in New Zealand decreed, through their representatives, "Land nationalisation without compensation" the minority would have sufficient spirit left to them to appeal to "a more fundamental law than legislation." Governments and Parliaments have no more moral right to rob than individuals have. When they attempt robbery, they must be resisted. To nationalise the land which the State has been paid for, without compensating the owners, would be robbery. Single-taxers would not have the State take the land; they would only make it take all its value for occupation. Like Henry George, they would take the kernel and leave the shell, because they say: "Historically, as ethically, private property in land is robbery " (Progress and Poverty, p. 262). "When the will of the majority is opposed to the eternal law of right, then men who deserve the name of men, will not submit to it.

The Best Men Available.

I should not like to be summoned before the bar of the House for defaming either senior or junior members; so, not to put too fine a point upon it, there is room for improvement in the personnel of our representatives. Surely it is not libellous to say that some of our members have never been specially designed by nature to guide the destinies of New Zealand.

Qualifications.

Before doctors, lawyers, chemists, and blacksmiths can practise their professions or trade they have to specially prepare themselves at their own expense, and then in some cases pay for certificates of efficiency. Damages would be given against them for loss and pain through incompetence. No one would knowingly employ the unskilled.

Now if the less scientific businesses—such as horseshoeing, bootmaking, etc.—require special preparation, how much more the difficult science of politics, which implies a good knowledge of sociology, history, human nature, the law of nations, political economy, and the possession of education, based not only on book knowledge, but experience? Our doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc., are not allowed to live on the taxpayers while they are learning the necessary qualifications for their callings.

Have We Got the Best Men!

There are some educated, experienced, conscientious, and hard-working legislators amongst those elected, but on the other hand there are some who reflect no credit on the House, and render no service to the Colony. They are learning their new vocation at the expense of the taxpayers. In the next elections men, not measures, will decide the choice. Good legislators will not pass bad laws—bad men cannot pass good ones. The country is safer in the hands of good men than bad ones, and therefore we all ought to exert ourselves to induce upright men to stand for election, and to defend them from the bullying political persecution that hitherto have deterred the best men from serving us.