At last Parliament has decided to give the small white population of the Northern Territory representation in the House of Representatives. The member to be elected when the House is re-elected will be given all the privileges of Parliament except that of voting. As he will be elected by less than 1,000 voters, it is obviously impossible to give him the same voice in deciding the fate of governments as is possessed by members representing 35,000 to 40,000 electors, but his position wil! be one of no little importance. He will be able to talk in Parliament, in the party meeting room and in the lobbies, and, as all know, it is in the last-named that a member's real influence is most felt. The matter does not end here. If the Northern Territory has a member, why not also Papua, the Federal Territory and even the mandated territory of New Guinea? Norfolk Island belongs tq the Commonwealth since 1913, prior to when it was polled as a part of New South Wales. It has a population nearly as great as that of Papua. The 1,000 Europeans of the Solomon Islands are at present unrepresented anywhere, and are bitterly opposed to the Fijian administration. It has been suggested in the Solomon Islands quarterly newspaper, "The Planters' Gazette," that if the islands were made territories of Australia they would at once be entitled toa member who could voice their views in Parliament and Hansard, even if he could not vote. It is a long way to look ahead but it seems not altogether impossible that some of us still living will see the time when a group of tropical representatives, with or without votes, will transfer the attention of temperate Australia to her most difficult problems, namely, those affecting her tropics. Seeing that three-fourths of the Commonwealth proper lies north of the 30th degree of south latitude such a development does not appear to be altogether inappropriate to the facts.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.