A UNIQUE CAREER.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2448, 29 April 1915, Page 6

A UNIQUE CAREER.

RETURNING OFFICER FOR FORTYFIVE YEARS. Wellington has practically only had one Chief Returning Officer and one City Valuer during its .existence as a municipality. That officer _is Mr. James Ames, to whose experience and foresight was largely due the smoothrunning of yesterday's record polling day. Probably there is no municipal officer in. the whole of Australasia who has served so continuously in such an important office. Mr. Ames was not here when Wellington elected its first Mayor. That was in 1842, when Mr. Geo. Hunter was returned. ' He was succeeded the following year by Mr. William Guiton, in 1843. After that year the' management of the affairs of the city (then but a village) was vested in the Wellington. Provincial Govern- , ment, which carried on until the-year i 1865, when a. Town Board was elected. This board existed until the year 1870, when the Municipal Corporations Act was passed, and Wellington was created a borough. It was in that year that Mr. Ames was appointed Chief Returning Officer, and he it was-who conducted the first election of Mayor under the new Act, .which resulted in the return, of the same Mr. Dransfield. That gentleman then held the" office of Mayor for four years continuously. Ever since 1870, Mr. Ames Has' been the Chief Returning Officer, and the conduct of the elections held yesterday shows that his powers of organisation are in no manner impaired by the passage of the years. • Speaking. reminiscently, Mr. Ames stated that the elections in the old days were ''conducted on very different lines from what they are to-day, A good deal of license was afforded candi-' dates and their friends, and the town was made gay with; coloured posters, rosettes, ribbons, instructions bow to vote were plastered all over the cabs engaged to bring voters to the poll, and candidates wore allowed to solicit votes when and.where they _ liked- There wore times, too,'when it was not very pleasant to be a. candidate, owing to the demonstrations made by opposing parties verbally and in other more objectionable ways. Gradually thoso liberties have been curtailed, until now the day of election is almost Sundaylike in quiet, and the observance of law and order.

, Mr. Ames recalls the.time when thero was open voting for Parliamentary candidates, and everyone knew how his neighbour voted. He has seen men taken up bodily by supporters of a candidate and carried shoulder high up to the table to record their votes. Tho excitement was very exhilarating to, tho crowd, but it was "hardly in the interests of a fuir paU> ui> WU3 tbc prcscHt .system.

AN INTERESTED VISITOR. , Among the interested spectators of yesterday's polls was the Rev. G. L. Morrell, Pastor of the People's Churcli, Minneapolis, U.S.A., and Chaplain or the Actors' Church Alliance. He was particularly arrested by the interest tho women took in yesterday's proceedings, both as regards the manner in which they turned out to vote, and the activity they displayed at tho polling booth doors. He stated that America bad a tiood deal to learn from New Zealand in the conduct of municipal elections, and stated his intention of writing an article to some of the American papers on the system followed here. He photographed a group of the women workers outside the Town Hall, and said that ho would publish it with tho articlo lie intended to write.