The Manawatu Standard. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1885. MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 1567, 27 November 1885, Page 2

Manawatu Standard. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1885. MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

Writes a Wellington paper m m reference to the recr nt Mayoralty election held there; — There is one point on which all the candidates laid justly much stress. All protested earnestly against the irksome and humiliating necessity now cast upon aspirants to public positions to carry on a direct personal canvass under penalty of certain defeat. If one candidate does it, all the others must also do it, or pay the inevitable penalty. Yet it cannot be disputed that personal canvassing is directly m contravention of the spirit of the ballot, and there is no doubt that the fact of such a canvass being an essential condition ot success m an electoral contest operates injuriously to the public interests by keeping out of both colonial and municipal politics many men whose services would be most valuable. Probably the time is not far distant when canvassing will be reckoned as an infringement of electoral secresy, and will be included among the " corrupt practices " which are so peremtorily forbidden by the Acts passed to secure the purity of elections. Such a reform is much to be desired.