FIVE AT ONCE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1077, 16 March 1911, Page 5

FIVE AT ONCE.

THE APRIL ELECTIONS. AN OVERDOSE FOR THE PUBLIC It is just beginning to dawn upon the public mind—or, to lie strictly accurate, that portion of the public .mind which will bo immediately and officially concerned—that tho municipal elections to bo held next, month will bo a most complicated business, and an expensive business. The last Wednesday of the mouth' of April has been fixed as tho date of tho biennial municipal elections, tho annual Mayoral elections, the annual election of (ho Hospital Board, tho Harbour Board election, and, most probably, the weekly hulf-holiday poll. Under (lie amended legislation of last year, the municipal council staffs will havo to conduct the lot. On tho faco of it, the idea of disposing of five elections in ono day, under a centralised system of polling, looks, simple and inexpensive, but, according to\ tho opinions expressed by certain, pcoplo who, being officially concerned, should bo j in the good position to judge, this is 1 by no means tho case. ■ The town clerk of Palraetstou. North, 1 alter taking considerable thought and fig. urmg out estimates of expenditure, came j to the conclusion that to far as his owml .district. w.as concerned, it would cost'', somclnihg like .£SOO to elect ono member of tho Harbour Board, and tak-' ing the general situation by and largo, decided to resign his appointment as a' protest. Previously, members of Har- \ com- Boards were elected by delegates ' appointed by the local" bodies, and re- '■ presentative interests-Chambers of Com- 1 merce, shipping companies, and 60 on— 1 concerned. That system has now been.', abolished, and henceforth tho Harbour, Boards will be elected by the municipal, franchise. This means, in tho case of! lalmerston, for example, the angraenta-' uon of tho electoral staff and other inci-1 dental expenses, so that the estimate of 1 the ralmerston Town Clerk in that con ! nection is not so far-fetched as might i appear on tho surface. Mr. W. P. Edrand, Town Clerk of Karori, does not tuink tho estimate of .£SOO is very far! o i Yi Hi! 1 ? illl ° consideration tho extent , ?i I? p ' ,!mcrs| o" district interested itij' H'o Harbour Board election, and, dur-, ing the course of a' conversation with* a representative of The Dominion- on tho subject, opined that the election would. 1 cost the Harbour Board, which has to foot tho bill, something like .CISOO by tho time the whole business was over. As In tho ■ general confusion likely to arise from a system of conducting five 1 different elections at tho same date, and' at tho same polling places, ho a state of chaos. ' I Mr. C. I. Dascnt, Mayor of Karon', 1 was asked what ho thought about tho : position. He drew a glowing picture or/ the polling day, when electors would bo' handed fivo different ballot papers, vari- , ously coloured, to worry over. If in a simplo straight-out election it invariably , happened that informal votes wore cast, what was likely to happen when eachj man had to go to tho poll with fivo> elections on his mind? Tho only juftifica-' tion that could be mado for this new I system was the assumption that it had! been devised by tho Government as «,! process of simplicity and economy. Hi was neither. Extra copies of tho rolls had to bo mado out, extra poll clerks' employed, and all this for n system whiclii promised nothing but confusion on the' polling day. This, apparently, said Mr. ' Daseiit, was tho era of tho Minister, andj tho "Order-in-Council," which' is the' Minister. It was "the Minister savs' this," and "the Minister says that"; an "Order-in-Council" was necessary for thia and the other thing. The country was surfeited with legislation, and tho authority and initiativo of local bodies was being whittled away year by year.