DRAWING THE LINE

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1709, 26 January 1874, Page 3

DRAWING THE LINE

Some time since a Mr Dawkins was elected Mayor of Cromwell. The Town having written to the Government to make Mr Dawkins a J.P., the Government answered in a roundabout way that it would not do so, and further said : — " The gentleman elected as Mayor is not necessarily a Justice of the Peace. The Government exercise a discretion in the matter, and it depends upon the position and occupation of the Mayor whether he is appointed or not." Now it seems that Mr Dawkins is a butcher, and the Cromwell Argus, in a leader upon the refusal to make a J.P. of the Mayor, assumes (correctly) that the Government, in making J.P.s draws the line above butchers (as Dickens's barber drew it at bakers and above coalheavers.) The Cromwell Argus, thereupon, not unnaturally says, "If a man's occupation alone is to be a bar to his attaining an honorable position, the sooner we apply to the TJnder-Secretary to import ,a number of gentlemen who have no occupation to come and be Mayors over us, the better. Cromwell has not the honor of holding one citizen whom it would elect as Mayor, who does not work, and that hard too, for his living. Citizens eligible for the office in the eyes of their neighbors have, and let us be proud and thankful to say it, some occupation. They are storekeepers, carpenters, blacksmiths, painters — nay, some are, dreadful to relate, butc'iers. Nor are the the Cromwellites, we are happy to say, alone in their views on this subject amongst Otagan towns. At the last general election of Mayors, Dunedin returned a grocer ; Tokomairiro, a grocer ; Lawrence, a storekeeper ; Alexandra, a carpenter ; Clyde, a storekeeper ; Queenstown, a storekeeper; Naseby, a faucy goods dealer ; and so on— every man, we see, having an occupation. Will the Government undertake to say which occupation shall, and which shall not, make a man eligible for the office of J.P. 1 If they are prepared to do it, justice demands that they begin with the deletion of the list of territorial Justices of the Peace. The exercise of their discretion (?) in the case of the Mayor of Cromwell has not been a happy one." (For continuation of Aewsseeithpage)