The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, APRIL 5.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 179, 5 April 1878, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, APRIL 5.

It is nearly time to disabuse the public mind of the meaning of the term manhood suffrage, which the Press so persistently endeavours to persuade its • readers is almost a crime in the political 'programme of Sir George Grey. Article after article has been written to show th.it under this garb Sir George Grey contemplates tlie almost entire unnihila- -• tion of ojir coloni il aristocracy. It is not enough that he shall have said over and over again, that he propose;- only to. confer the suffrage after a given period of fixed residence within the locality. This was broadly asserted in Christchurch, more emphatically at Wdolston, and we think nearly as pldiuly at Akaroa. No : matter, .the Press, in its anxious desire to bespatter Sir George Grey with some of" its editorial dirt, will not be satisfied 1 with anything less than the plain and unvarnished manhood -rights it will not stay even to consider the effect of such a qualification ; it will not see that a simple right to vote upon the maiurs years' principle is simply a premium for crime, an inducement to! the practice of deceit and lying, which would be the inevitable forerunner of ,-jvery other conceivable vice. A man' j_oight- forexample, vote.jn the.morning

at Akaroa, at mid-day at the Head of the' Bay, and before 5 o'clock at Lyttelton, if there should be a polling place there for the Peninsula, because, having no qualification test, no registered vote,'the returning officer could only ask ■ l have you voted beforehand the ready lie would be forthcoming, where a grievous political wrong was desired tobe achieved, and the steps from this advanced stage of crime to one of a. deeper' shade would be easy. To suppose Sir George Grey capable of advocating such a senseless state of political right, is as absurd as it would be to suppose him to advocate a community of property. The right of the resident, whether for six or twelve months, not being a rate or other taxpayer, is a very different matter. The lodger franchise has already become law, and claims to vote under the Act are now, doubtless, in the hands of the registration officers, it is somewhat strange that our very earnest-minded contemporary should not have ferreted out this Act, passed only in 1875, and have shewn that the late immaculate Atkinson-cum-Ormond Government were practically the men who first gave to the country this vast privilege. But it is. now argued that Sir George Grey is noVto; be trusted,in this residentijal clause ; he contemplates a raid upon it, and some one therefore is to move some foolish amendment, which the Government will hasten to accept. But we entreat our readers not to allow themselves to be deluded by such shallow reasoning ; we ask them to place full reliance upon Sir George Grey's integrity, as other men have done before, and have not been either deceived or misled. We would remind our readers that a dissolution of Parliament is almost inevitable. It is therefore preeminently necessary to be vigilant, to keep our powder dry, to be, in season and out of season, constantly on the watch for suitable men to bring out in this interest as soon as the time arrives.