Board Elections

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 121, 18 April 1889, Page 2

Board Elections

Our contemporary, the Manawatu Times, returns to the charge again on the matter of the interpretation of the Road Board Act, 1882, clause 31, and adduces the following curious reason for its opinion : — " The Feilding Star considers that the clause in the Road Board Act relating to the day for holding the general election of members every third year can be read two ways, and that the date can be altered to suit conveniencies. Will our contemporary kindly look through the Act again and notice that another clause provides that members hold office till their successors are elected. As clause 31 provided that all the members must go out of office on a certain fixed date, it is therefore obvious that the election must take place on that date and no other. The amending Act of last session, however, contains a saving clause which seems to cover any irregularity." Our contemporary surely must see that after a member goes out of office on a day appointed by the Act, he merely holds office un'il his successor is elected as a ** locum, tenens," and holds it, not by virtue of the fact of his having been elected to the position, but because no successor has yet been appointed. Our contemporary's argument is therefore quite inapplicable. As a matter of fact, through an oversight, the elections for the Manchester Road Board, in 1883, were not held in May at all, but in Juno, so that the Act could not be complied with lit erally.