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Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 24, 25 August 1891, Page 2

One of the latest and most nonsenical fads of a member of Parliament is that of Mr W. Hutchison, the menilDer for the City of Dunedin. That wise legislator proposes, when the Municipal! Corporations Act Amendment Bill ecu nes up for discussion in- Committee, to introduce a revolutionary" change in the municipal franchise. It is that a clause I>e inserted giving the right to vote in municipal polls to all residents within eael 1 borough, whose names appear on the P.- irliamentary roU for the electoral distric *.t, instead of confining the burgess roll to ratepayers. Now, in order to show how this clause would effect owneirs of property or leaseholders, we may r emind our readers that in the new Act it i s provided that any proposal for a special loan submitted to the ratepayers of a borough or town district, shall be deemed to be carried if two-thirds of the total votes recorded are cast in its favor. Suppose, for example, that this wonderful proposal of the sapient and honorable! member became law; times were bad in any of the Boroughs where there wtas a large number of men unemployed, everyone of whom was on the Parliamentary roll, and therefore entitled to yote as burgesses. In order to find, or make, work for themselves a suggestion is made tha.fc a loan of .£50,000 be raised to be expended in public works. The bona fide Iburgesses, that is the ratepayers, might protest, but as they would be in a helpless minority the proposal would, as a matter of course, he carried, and they would have to pay the interest on loan, while the Parliamentary electors would escape scot free, although they enjoyed the squandering of the money. It would seem that if by the passing of the Law Practitioners Bill, the term lawyer no longer means one learned in the law ; and if Mr W. Hutchison's clause is admitted into the Municipal Bill, a ratepayer will mean a man who has no rates to pay. Truly this is a revolutionary age.

We learn from an exchange that a strike of a novel character is promised down south. At Rakaia a meeting was held to protest against the payment of exchange on cheques, at which it was resolved that unless the practice was discontinued within three months they would refuse to accept bank notes. It does not appear to have been suggested to these intending strikers that their best plan would be to refuse payment of their wages by cheques, and demand either bank notes or gold. Why the banks should be expected to undertake the trouble and risk of collecting cheques free, gratis, and for nothing, is one of these things not easily understood.

We learn from the Parliamentary Jottings of the Post that an inspector of the Postal Department will visit the Manawatu district this week, and upon his report it will depend whether the Post-master-General adopts the suggestion of Mr Wilson, that mails be sent direct from Palmerston North to stations along the railway line, instead of being sent first to Wellington, and then sent back to their destinations.

In the House on Friday night the leader ofthe Opposition, the Hon. John Bryce, twitted (Parliamentary expression) the Goyernment with having many separate policies — a policy of taxation, a labour policy, a retrenchment policy, and a policy of lavish kindness to members, exemplified in their Payment of Members Bill. The Honorable Johu is a yery hard hitter.

The following are the traffic returns for the four weeks, ending the 18fch July, and for the corresponding four weeks, 1890, for the Napier-Taranaki section : —

13 10 £10,237 4 8 It is observable that there is an increase under each heading.

Contractors complain that there- is a great scarcity o? really cood men, although the prices they are .prepared to

pay as wages are high. Some of the men who are nominally looking for work are really not desirous of finding it, and one instance has been brought under our notice where an employer gave some men enough money to buy food to enable them to go and look at some work, but they never went near it.