The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas, et Prevalebit. TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1882. Stragglers v. Electors.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 649, 30 May 1882, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas, et Prevalebit. TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1882. Stragglers v. Electors.

TOWN EDITION. [Tssued at 4.40 p. m. j

The brief analysis of the supplementary electoral roll for Wakanui which we published in our local columns yesterday will, we think, startle not a few whose interest is wrapt up in that electorate. The figures which we placed before our readers were quite sufficient to prove that under the existing law the votes of the real electors of a constituency may be swamped by a hundred or two nomads, who care as little who represents the place for which they claim a vote as does the King of the Cannibal Islands, or a Liberal candidate after the election is over. A careful analysis of the last supplementary roll shows, as we stated yesterday, that out of 337 names which appear as claimants to vote, there are only eleven farmers claiming under the property qualification, and out of that eleven less than half claim Wakanui as their place of residence. The bulk of the remaining 326 are mere birds of passage—here today and gone to-morrow. All this, we think, points conclusively to the urgent need of an immediate amendment in the Registration of Electors Act. This particular specimen of legislative wisdom may be very suitable when the Millennium shall have become an accomplished fact ; but in these prosaic days, when one has to do battle with men who have served a -lengthy apprenticeship in the “ ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,” the Registration of Electors Act is merely an inducement to a man of an elastic conscience to perpetrate what he might term a piece of sharp practice, but what others, whose consciences are of a less elastic nature, would characterise by a very different expression. It was argued by the advocates of the Registration of Electors Act during its progress through committee of the House that, although it was almost manhood suffrage, yet the provisions of the Bill were such as to prevent mere wanderers having a voice in the Government of the country. This sounded all very well in theory, yet in practice how dp we find it work ? The figures which we publish prove con clusively that we had better have manhood suffrage pute et simple, than the nondescript measure which is at present the law of the land. It is onlv necessary now for a man eager for Parliamentary honors —if he knows he .does not possess the confidence of a majority of the real electors—to hawk about-a pocketful of claims to vote, and get Tom, Dick, and Hafry to sign them, and he will be able to swamp the votes of the bona fide electors of the district which he seeks to represent. More especially is this the case with a district of so great an area as Wakanui, where the population is necessarily scattered. As the law now stands, a man has only to rent or purchase a few cottages on the other side of the belt, and pack them with adult males a month prior to the making up of the roll, and he renders his return almost a certainly, unless the electors of the district rise as one man and determine to defeat the nefarious transaction. We could point to one name at least on the latest issued roll, where a man, up to about six weeks back, had his abode in a building owned by a certain candidate for Parliamentary honors. But that tenement was not within the sacred precincts of Wakanui, and consequently a cottage was taken, the locale of which was within the desired electoral district, and that individual now appears among those “ duly qualified ” to record their votes for that electorate, having no more stake in it than has a man who is in blissful ignorance of the world’s area containing such an important place as Wakanui. But, as far as the coming polling for Wakanui is concerned, it is useless to trouble about the shortcomings of the Act. Let the real electors of this muchfought for seat be true to themselves, and the machinations of the radical candidate will be of little avail. We appeal to the farmers and farm laborers lo go to the poll on the i6th of June next and vote as one man against the mischievous demagogue who would place a heavy import tax on the implements of their husbandry ; who would place a heavy import tax on the boots and shoes which they and their little ones wear; who would tax even the very coats on their backs. And all for what ? Merely to support, at the expense of the farmers, a few industries j

for which the colony is by no means ripe, and squeeze the last farthing out of their pockets for the agrandisement of a set of little better than loafers in the large towns of the colony, who will not bear the brunt of opening up new country, but will rather hang about the centres of population, trusting to a paternal Government to render them eleemosynary assistance in the shape of a protective tariff. But the farmers of Wakanui are quite slrong enough, if they are true to themselves, to defeat this latest move of that gentleman who so delights to tell us that he is the only friend the farming class have in the place. Let the farmers of Wakanui, then, determine that they, and they alone —and they are quite strong enough, if they are but united—will say who shall be the sitting member for their electorate, and they need have little fear of the result, notwithstanding the determined attempt which has been made to virtually disfranchise them.