THE GLOBE. MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1925, 26 April 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1880.

It is scarcely creditable to a city of the importance of Christchurch that its councillors should be so ignorant of the laws made specially for their guidance, as would appear from the report of last Monday night's proceedings. It is stated that a councillor, not interested in the Tramway Company, objected to other councillors who are shareholders in that company speaking and voting on questions affecting the company's interests. His Worship the Mayor, it would seem, was as much at fault as his coadjutors, notwithstanding his long municipal experience. Councillor Gapes, also a veteran municipal legislator, was in a most hopeless muddle; and Councillor Ayera, who has once wooed the sweet voice of the ratepayers —unsuccessfully —for the honor of becoming chief magistrate, apparently could not assist his chief out of the difficulty. It is rumored that Councillor Ayers intends to make another attempt this year for possession of the Mayoral chair. If this be true, wo trust he will take a littlo pains to qualify himsolf for the post by reading up the Acts of the Assembly bearing upon municipal questions. But we digress. To return to our subject. When Councillor Hulbert raised the question about Councillors voting on questions in which they, as shareholders, were interested, no one seemed to know anything about the provisions of the Statute affecting the case. One Councillor thought—and for a time his Worship seemed to be of the same opinion—that if the company numbered more than twenty shareholders, the penal clause of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1876, would not apply. Now if Councillors had reflected for one moment they would no doubt have seen the utter absurdity of such a proposition. Suppose a majority of the members of the Council to be shareholders in the Tramway Company—not a remote possibility at any time—if there were no legislative check upon their actions, what might not happen? Instead of only being allowed to dig up one hundred yards of the roadway at a time, they might vote themselves permission to close an important thoroughfare for an indefinite period. But, fortunately, the law is very explicit upon the question. It does not matter in the least how many shareholders there may be in a company, no member thereof, being a member of the Corporation, can vote upon a question in which the company is interested. The clause bearing upon the point reads as follows: "No Councillor shall vote upon or take any part: in the discussion of any matter before the Council in which he has, directly or indirectly, by himself or his partners, any interest; and any Councillor who knowingly offends against this section shall be liable to a penalty not sxceeding £SO for every such offence." — Section 75 Municipal Corporation Act, 1876.

The point upon which the Council apparently got fogged, refers to tho eligibility or otherwise of a person to hold a seat in the Council. The consideration of this portion of the Act discloses an anomaly in the state of the law which may perhaps surprise many who have not hitherto paid particular attention to it. Section 61 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1876, provides that no person shall be eligible to bo a Councillor who is a partner in a firm or shareholder in a company numbering less than twenty-one persons, supposing such firm or company to do work for the Corporation. Now, how many members of the House of Representativss would be disqualified if this provision were extended so as to reach them ? A Member of Parliament, so long as his firm or company consists of seven persons, may contract with and do work for the Government to any extent, but not so with a Borough Councillor! Under this peculiar law many members of tho House of Representatives could not take part in the administration of municipal affairs, however desirous they might be to do so, because a company in which they had a small interest did work for the Corporation. For instance. A company numbering seven persons may supply the Government with as many hundreds of tons of (say) cement as it likes, and each shareholder is eligible to bo a Member of Parliament; but the company must consist of more than twenty persons or no shareholder could be a Borough Councillor so long as the Company contracted with or did work for the Council. Perhaps, when the Assembly has time, it may look into this matter.

The intelligence received in to-day's cable news that Mr. Gladstone has been summoned by the Queen, and has accepted the task of forming a new Ministry, will take the public at large by surprise. Notwithstanding the inconvenience occasioned by tho fact of a man of his exalted talents being attached to his party in a manner which rendered liis position altogether anomalous, it has been generally taken for granted that he would never again stand officially at the head of the Liberal party. For not only had ho been generally understood to have declared that he had no intention of leading the Liberals again, but the violent manner in which he has of late been enunciating his views—a manner totally without the dignified calm which is supposed to characterise - utterances emanating from the head of one of the great national parties—has led people to believe that he had developed into a free lance, and that the utmost that could bo expected, if the Liberals came into power, would be that ho would take tho Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and devote his great financial talents to regulating tho monetary affairs of tho nation, which have fallon somewhat into disorder, as they generally do under a Conservative Government. All speculations, however, have been overturned, and tho Marquis of Hartington has not apparently seen his way to lead the party while Mr. Gladstone is in full possession of his energy and his abilities. It is to be presumed by the course that events have taken —by the fact that tho Marquis and Lord Granville appear to concur in tho summoning of Mr. Gladstone—that some sort of understanding has been come to between the Whig and Radical sections of tho great Liberal party. It has probably been felt that to weld the party into a united 'whole it was necessary to have the

greatest man at the head of affairs, provided he could be induced to come to some sort of an arrangement by which the more moderate among his party would feel at liberty to follow him. Mr. Gladstone in power will probably be by no means the same description of individual as was Mr. Gladstone in opposition. Certainly when last Premier, what may be called his rabid instincts were kept well in check, and he was by so much the greatest man of his party that he was most willingly followed. It is to be trusted that he will once more return into the old groove. Should he do so, the advantage to the Liberal party at large will be enormous. The almost unsurmountablo obstacle of the natural leader of a party being unconnected officially with his quondam adherents is not a state of affairs contemplated by the spirit of the English constitution. The inconvenience of such a contretemps has been felt by the French nation of late in the case of M. Gambetta, who, although the natural leader of the Republicans, has stood aside and refused office. In that case, as in Mr. Gladstone's, Government has been carried on, when his party has been in power, with one eyo fixod on the giant in the background. Heine remarks that lady authoresses write with one eye on the paper and the other directed towards some particular man. The French Government have of late been carrying on the affairs of the country in much the same way. The situation is not a desirable one, and the Liberal party in England apparently seem to realise the inconvenience of such a state of affairs.