The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3053, 8 April 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1881.

We have called attention in a previous issue to the number of electors whose names are now on the Napier and Clive rolls, the first of which contains 1385, and the latter 1145. Thus, for the whole provincial district, there are but 2530 registered electors out of a total population of about 16,000. This is the more extraordinary as under the old system of a property qualification the number of registered electors was considerably grei.t?i, and every year the population of ..be province has been increasing. There can be but one deduction from tho above fact, which is tbat the r.on-propertied classes do not as thoroughly vaine tbe piivileges of the franchise ><st.ho advocates of manhood eudeavored to make out. We are aware that one reason for the decrease inthe number of electors i 9 that, on the initiation of tbe present system, the rolls were pretty fairly purged of the names of dead persons, Maoris, and unnaturalised foreigners. There is also another cause to account for the attenuated condition of tbe electors' lists The names of persons whose qualifications were described as '• lodger," "leasehold," or " ratepayer," have been struck off, no such qualifications being now'recognised. It is likely that those who have in this way been taken off the roll have not taken the trouble to re-register under the residential clause. In any case it is of great importance that everyone entitled to be placed on the roll should register bis name, so that the claim of the town to be severed from tbe country portion of the constituency may be fully recognised when the Representation Bill is before Parliament. The draft of that bill, introduced last session, provided for representation on a basis of population, and proposed to raise the Borough of Napier into a separate constituency. The population of this town was put down at 5415, the Country Districts 4953, and Clive 4721. The census just taken will probably show a considerable increase upon those numbers, but the House will be guided as much by the electoral rolls as by tbe actual number of residents. It costs nothing to be registered, and the law only dem.tnds that a person shall be twenty-one year* of age and a six-months' resident in a district to entitle him to registration. It is, perhaps, owing to the fact of the franchise being so low tbat its privileges are no longer valued.