THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 848, 22 January 1883, Page 2

THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTION.

To THB EdXTOK.

Sir, —Your remarks about the School Committee election, and especially as to the evil of cumulative voting, will coirmend Ityemselves to all sensible people. You seem, however—a little strangely—to have forgotten that Asljburton, like many other p! ees in the colony, has already suffered from this weapon of mischief. Two years ago, I think it was, an individual who certainly could not be said to represent the cultivated intelligence of the community, was, to the astonishment of everybody not in the secret, placed at the head of the poll for the Ashburton Committee by a thumping majority, while men standing infinitely higher than himself in the estimation of their fellow citizens, found themselves low down in the list. Cumulative voting was the ladder by which this candidate had mounted to success, and so long as such an absurd and unfair system of taking the votes at School Committee meetings prevails, so long will it be possible for objectionable persons to be elected to those bodies against the wishes of the majority of the householders). 1 would nevertheless urge all qualified ,

householders to attend the meeting tonight, and to stay for the voting, so that we may get the beat Committee possible under the circumstances.—l am, etc., Householder. Ashburton, 22nd January.