The Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1877.

Inangahua Times, Volume III, Issue 83, 12 March 1877, Page 2

The Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1877.

f , ■ > It is notified elsewhere that a petition baa been lodged against the return to f the Inangabua County Council of Mr Byrne for the Antonio's Biding. ~ We have not yet had an opportunity of ascertaining the precise grounds upon which the petition has been based, but • it would appear, from report, th« the objections are of a general and teebni^ cal character. We purpose taking an early, opportunity of referring to the petition at length.. In the meantime however, we cannot belp thinkini that the faculty which the Counties Act ' affords for " testing the validity " of 1 elections is, not altogether, an unmixed ■ good. The first election for, Antonio's , Riding wag petitioned against, and successfully, but by whom?— by one who was not a resident of that riding, 1 and who had not the smallest personal 1 "stake" in its welfare. It could not • then have been the greed of a seat in the Council which prompted the petition in question, th,e peiitioner baying Already acquired a seat for another ' portion of the County. We are then driven to the conclusion that the birth of the petitition was due, in a great measure^ to mere personal feeling. Upon the strength of that petition the election was upset, and qpie fin consequence of the then Returning Oigcer having given only thirteen days instead of fourteen days notice of the election as required by the Act. For this lapse of twenty-four hours, which 1 was nothing more than a mere dry. i technicality, the gentleman returned > was unseated, and not oufy made to suffer the loss of his electioneering expenses, but mulcted in a sum, of $%0 % The Riding was. deprived of representation for the time being, and the County was taddled with the cost of a second election- And now we. find that this farce is to be enacted over again — the late election ia impugned upon somewhat similar grounds, and seemingly for no better reaaooa than those adduced on the former occasion, the Court is to be asked to burden the County with another election. To, a reasonable and valid ground of objection no exception could be rightly taken ; but it does not seem warrantable or advisable that the administration of the County should be unstrung upon a paltry .legal quibble such as has already been the case.