THE Hauraki Plains Gazette. With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY,WEDNESDAY,& FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1922. AUTOCRATIC POWERS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4402, 12 April 1922, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette. With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY,WEDNESDAY,& FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1922. AUTOCRATIC POWERS.

The annual meeting of the Paerca Chamber of Commerce will be held in May next, and it is to be hoped that the business men of the town will take a keen interest in the nomination of officers, and carry out the proper procedure according to rale 23 : Candidates for election to the office qf president, vice-president, or for the executive committee shall 1 be nominated in writing by two members. All such nominations should also be signed by the candidates. The names of the candidates arid their proposers shall be notified ’ip the members of the Chamber by circular not less than seven days immediately before the date of the annual meeting.

There is. another rale which it is very timely to draw attention to; namely, rule 21, which reads : The management and control of the Chamber shall be vested in the Executive Committee, who, in addi tion to the powers and authorities bythese presents expressly conferred upon them, may exercise all such powers and dp all such acts and things as may be exercised or done by the Chamber - in general, meeting but subject nevertheless .to such regulations (not being inconsistent witri these rules), as may be made by resolution at a general meeting; but no such regulations so made should invalidate any prior act of the Committee which would have, been valid if such regulation had not beep made.

In effect, the last clause of the above rule gives thea executive practically autocratic powers, which may or may not be abused. For example, the Executive of the Chamber, on the occasion of the. recent visit of .the Minister of Lands and Acting-Minister of Railways (Hon. D. H. Guthrie), urged that the junction, of the proposed Paeroa-Po'keno railway should be near Mill Road instead of at the Puke end. This is a matter which has not, in recent times at any rate, come before the Chamber, and there is a. very derided division of opinion in the town on the subject. In fact, had i'f’not been for the commendable desire on the part of leadirg public men in Paeroa co preserve at least an appearance of unity, a contrary view would have been put before the Minister. We are not expressing an opinion on the merits or demerits of the proposal in this article, but are confining ourselves solely to a matter of policy in procedure. The executive acted in a perfectly legal manner, but it is obviously impolitic to place in the hands of any two or three men the power to put forward important proposals on behalf of the Chamber which have never been - discussed and which might meet with overwhelming hostility by a general meeting. Rule* 21 certainly needs amending in order to prevent a small minority of members coming together at a hast-ily-called meeting and putting forward schemes which may be at variance with the views of the great maiority of members. Cases are not lacking in which projects worthy enough in themselves have been killed, or their nrogress retarded, by perfectly legal but apparently arbitrary handling.