The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, NOV. 16, 1886. Secession

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 58, 16 November 1886, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, NOV. 16, 1886. Secession

In connection with the agitation now | obtaining in No. 6 Ward of the Manchester Road District, for separation, . we quote the following case heard j before Tudge Johnston in the Supreme . Court, Christchurch, as reported in the Weekly Advertiser. Application was made by certain ratepayers for a mandamurx to compel the members of the Oxford Road Board to declare a certain portion of their district a new Road District. By the statement of the claim, it appeared that in March 1886 a petition was presented to the Board in the manner and form provided for by the Road Boards Act, 1882 (section 4), praying that a certain part of the Oxford Road District might constitute a separate district. Some of the signatures were alleged to be false, and a Commissioner was appointed, under section- 1 8 of the Road Boards Act, 1882, to make inquiry. He reported that the petition was signed by two-thirds of the ratepayers of that portion of the Oxford Road District comprised within the boundaries of the proposed new Road District, but that the petition I was not signed by two - thirds of the ratepayers of the Oxford Road District, of which the proposed new District was a portion. Section 4 of the Road Boards Act, 1882, provides for the constitution of new Road Board Districts, subject, however, to tbe following conditions : — " That a petition be presented to the proper authority (which in this instance was the Oxford Road Board)

setting forth the boundaries of the proposed new District, signed by twothirds of the ratepayers for each of the outlying districts or Road Districts comprised, or portions of which are comprised in the proposed new Road Board to constitute such new district.' ' The question for the decisi»n of tho Court was as to whether signatures of two-thirds of the ratepayers of the whole Oxford Road District were required, or only the signatures of two-thirds of the ratepayers in the proposed new district. Judge Johxston said — " I think this application must be refused. I must hold that the petition must be signed by twothirds of the ratepayers of the whole of any district of which any portion is comprised in the new district. Mandamurs refused.

This sets the question at rest, bocause it would be practically impossible to get any petition signed by two - thirds of the ratepayers iv a district from which a part wished to secede. The ratepayers of No. 6 Ward in the Manchester Road Dis trict will have to remain as they are. Our advice to the discontented ones is to elect a useful member to the seat on the Board made vacant by the resignation of their representative, which was sent in at the last meeting ef the Board.