CLUTHA COUNTY COUNCIL.

Clutha Leader, Volume V, Issue 208, 5 July 1878, Page 6

CLUTHA COUNTY COUNCIL.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,' — The recent action of the Clutha County Council re the alteration of the boundaries of the Ridings, compels mo to ask a small space in your columns to call the attention of the ratepayers affected thereby to a sense of their position by the confirmation of the resolution passed at last meeting (if upheld), whereby Brugh is abolished, and a new Riding created instead. Those who have attempted to push this motion through the Council evidently overlook or ignore the fact that the electoral rolls must be compiled by June 20, and that no alteration can be made unless prior to that date (see clauses 48, 49, and GO, of the Counties Act). But clearly this is no concern to the Chairman ; to him it matters not how the law is set at defiance, or what injustice he hurls upon others who have quietly to submit to his deliberations and put their hands into their pockets and pay him to the tune of £12 10s per sitting ! Surely this cherished morsel ia far mere dear than any honesty of purpose in so far as the ratepayers affected by this resolution, who, if the motion could be upheld, are disfranchised, and "Wairuna can have no representative for a year. Brugh is abolished altogether, whilst that portion of Pomahaka thrust on to Clinton can have no voice in the expenditure of its funds during the whole of the next session of the Council, as the electors' names cannot appear on the roll for that Biding to which they are being cast by their member, and thereby at the general election in November can have no vote. Generous Councillor ! Protector of vested trust! Severs his constituency, disfranchises the one-half, and that in order to hedge in and secure for himself that precious position, a seat at the Council! • ; • :.. '■.",-:'•

Yes, Mr Editor, and this is local self-

government, .and justice meted to all ! Such things were done in the face of the fact that a majoi-iiy of the Council, representing the greater number of the electors of the County were against the motion, and advantage being taken of the absence of Captain Mackenzie, whoso views were clearly denned in your issue of the 21st ult., as also in disregard of the protest from the Clinton Road Board.

I cam, therefore, strongly urged by a senso of duty to write in extremely strong language my disapproval of the line of action pursued by the Chairman, whose incompetence to hold the position is so clearly shown by the gross blunders and confusion that has time after time characterised the proceedings of the Council, and on this occasion when imperative duty and equity to the electors presented itself he surely should not have been found betraying their best interests, whilst earning £3 per week as their protector, and the Council's guide. And for what reason? Is there no selfish motive at all, urgmghirn to deal bhe death-blow toßrugh, disfranchise "Wairuna, and a large portion of the Pomahaka, even although by his casting vote he stands self -convicted by the bye-laws of his own adoption, the practice adhered to in tlio House of Representatives and all other public bodies, and contrary to the Act that frames the constitution over which he presides.

Having endeavoured to draw the attention of those aftbetod by this most rigid wrong, and to my thinking, as gross a piece of injustice as could be perpetrated by any one in such a capacity of public trust, I shall now for the present leave the matter with the ratepayers, with whom these matters should rest, but as we have not heard the last of it, we shall watch with interest the action of those concerned. | I am, &c, Robert Scobie. Clinton, July 2, 1878.