THE Grey Riber Argus. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1871.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 786, 31 January 1871, Page 2

THE Grey Riber Argus. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1871.

No sooner has the election of the County Chairman been concluded than Mr Barff asks the County Council to consider a resolution in favor of entirely altering the mode of electing the chief executive officer of the County. Last session Mr John White took up the cudgels in favor of election by " the people," and a resolution in support of that principle was forwarded to the General Assembly, and was there consigned to the grave of all still-born documents. Mr Barff was then a member of the Legislature, and was thoroughly aware of the existence of the petition, but he opened not his mouth. We are -aware that he had some idea of carrying out the object of the petition by a side wind, but the circumstances were not favorable. A recent election of a Superintendent had taken place in-Marl-borough, where the process is exactly similar to that followed in the County Council of Westland, viz., the members of the Council elect their chief officer. Mr Eyes, the former Superintendent, was not re-elected, and he vented his disappointment by bringing in a Bill in the House of Representatives in favor of placing the election of Superintendent of Marlborough on the same footing as in the older Provinces. Mr Barff thought he saw a splendid chance of including the Westland Chairmanship in this measure, and, we believe, did arrange with Mr Eyes to have an additional necessary clause inserted. But subsequently Mr Barff found out that persons in the position of a Superintendent, if elected by the popular voice, could only be elected by registered electors, as provided by the Constitution Act. Such a basis of election did not suit Mr Barff s views, and he backed out of his former intention. He is now again, in the sublunary sphere of the County Council, agitating the subject of popular election as applied to the County Chairmanship, and probably there will be dreary debates upon it, in which he will declare himself with great force and emphasis. We should not be surprised even if Mr White were to flesh his maiden sword in the Assembly upon this question, but we may tell both Mr Barff and Mr White that there is not the slightest probability of the General Assembly making any such alteration in the election of County Chairman as that proposed by them. There is rot a single feature in the Constitution of New Zealand that has created greater differences of opinion than the prescribed mode by which Superintendents of Provinces are chosen. From the earliest days of Provincialism many of the ablest and most thinking public men of New Zealand have objected to the election of Superintendents by the popular voice, and on more than one occasion an alteration in favor of nomination by the Crown has been on the verge of being carried. When the new Provinces Act was passed, it was made a special feature of that measure, that the Councils of the new Provinces should elect their own Superintendent, and that system has]^orked well on the whole, although, of sourse, some one person or set of persons is always to be found on the grumbling side. The objection to this system in Westland does not really exist in the system itself. It is in the elements of the machinery by which it is carried out. We do not desire to realise the old proverb by defiling our own nest, but it is nevertheless a fact that the present mode of electing the chief officer of the County has not been satisfactory to the public, nor is it likely to become so. The want of the condition of permanancy in the office itself and in the tenure of the Council is a fatal bar against securing efficiency in either the Council or the Chairman. Westland has worked its system of Government for only three years, during which time it has had four different Chairmen, and its small council of nine members has suffered something like fourteen changes in its personnel. It is the constant change that forbids the idea of carrying out the existing system of election satisfactorily. And we cannot see how popular election will mend matters. The public is likely to be quite a3 fickle as the Council— indeed the recent elections have proved this — and we Bhould only have the addition of public excitement, great expense and loss of time to the present dissatisfaction. If Mr Barff and those who think with him wish to have the County Chairman elected by "the people" — by a plebiscitum in fact — they will never succeed in their object, for they will never persuade the Assembly of New Zealand to repeat in this Colony those abuses of democracy from which America is struggling hard to free herself. There are only three courses open — Ist, to allow the mode of election to remain as it is ; 2nd, election by the registered electors ; 3rd, nomination by the Government. Of these three courses, so long as the Chairman of the Council is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Government of the County, we unhesitatingly prefer the last. But if the Chairman is simply to bear the same relation to the County Council as a Mayor does to his Borough Councillors, then either of the two first would suffice. If election in any shape is to continue the office of Chairman should be made of a more honorary character, and the real departmental and official work should be entrusted to a permanent officer.