A WARNING TO BURGESSES.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 76, 27 September 1893, Page 2

A WARNING TO BURGESSES.

In tbe political platform adopted by tbe Liberal Association in Wellington, it is urged that voting power should be granted to every adult householder in municipal elections. Why this concession should be I sought for we do not protess to be able to explain, unless it is on the broad liberal principle of trying to get something " free gratis and for nothing." In this colony any person with ordinary thrift can become a ratepayer within a year at the least, if be so desires, and as such undertake to bear a portion of the municipal expenses of maintenance, of road making, and of management. As a householder, say an ordinary weekly tenant, he escapes this direct taxation, although the owner of the property may bo enabled to mulct him of a portion of the rating m tbe rent, wbich is problematical as any house agent will explain. Tho very basis of a municipality is the rating, and the creators of a Borough must, in the first instance, voluntarily join together and agree to bear that burden. The privileges they receive in return are many, but they enjoy no benefits that they do not pay for out of their own pockets, except perhaps, in cases where a borough has large reserve endowments, and of these there are few, if any, in this colony. Why, then, people who bave had no hand in making a borough and have no real permanent interest in it, should expect to be empowered to vote at municipal elections, and thus control the expenditure,ior assist in piitting burdens on the shoulders of the ratepayers, we fail to understand. A shifting population could very easily vote for a large loan to be expended in public works for their special benefit in a town where they temporarily resided, and, when the money was all spent, depart for other places, leaying the unfortunate property owners the task of paying off principal and interest. But, to make property pay is a portion of tho ■■ gr.eat liberal " policy, and no doubt the builders of this remarkable " political platform " keep that steadily in view.