DISFRANCHISEMENT OF CANTERBURY.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 618, 12 June 1876, Page 3

DISFRANCHISEMENT OF CANTERBURY.

lo the Editor of the Glohe.

Sir, —The arguments produced in the above cause by the Press are valid and weighty, more especially the last reason given against the action Jof our Canterbury officials. One point, however, seems to have been missed in the discussion—*' The bad faith on the part of the Government whereby the working class will be defrauded of their votes.” The case rests thus: hundreds of electors who could have registered their votes by the old process—being guided by the Act passed under the present Govern-ment-decided not to register under the old Act, because they would be registered by the action of the City Council and Road Boards.

By the actions of the officials the Canterbury labouring class find themselves thrown off the roll, by reason of the fact that they trusted to the new Act, and were safe, as they thought, under that. Now these unfortunate hundreds of men can fairly lay a case of mala Jides against the Government, unless the Ministry interfere to place them on the same footing as the Auckland electors.

The crisis of New Zealand history is come, and a heavy struggle may be expected before the cloudy proposals of the Ministry can be understood and approved. At present it seems that all the evils of Provincialism are to be multiplied sevenfold, bodies of all kinds sent into the market to borrow, and the safeguards at the same time are to bo destroyed. Such things will probably end in a dissolution and re-election before the country can be reconstructed. The Canterbuiy public have a right to petition the Government to see them saved from this cruel political destruction. The Government, also having their very greatest stronghold in Canterbury (witness Ministers Bowen and Richardson, besides Mr Moorhouse and other supporters), should see that the new Representation Act, to be passed by the coming House, shall not be based upon the paltry lists of electors still standing in Canterbury, on the one side ; while on the other, in Auckland, so enormously increased, will be the support given to their most bitter opponents. Under all the circumstances, it would amount to a rubst grievous wrong to both electors and the Government. The labouring men, many of whom would have left their work to register their votes, would at once be heavily prejudiced against a Government that could not see them placed in the same position as their fellow electors in the North and elsewhere. It would form a very good ground for popular agitation of an unpleasant character, to prevent which, and to secure all a “ fair field and no favour,” the Government should at once interfere, and not wait for a petition. Yours, &c., J. W. TREADWELL.