THE MAYOR AND THE LATE MEETING.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5038, 17 May 1877, Page 2

THE MAYOR AND THE LATE MEETING.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TESTES. SIE, —I have generally been able to acknowledge the good sense and the tact displayed by the Mayor when he has appeared before the public on public matters; but I must say that I was much surprised by his proceedings at the meeting on Tuesday night. I do not wish to advert to everything of which I disapproved; but merely desire now to say something as to the curious proposal for taking a plebiscitum of the ratepayers—" Aye" or "No" to the scheme of Mr. Cliniie. What on earth do the ratepayers really know of the merits of this or any scheme? Is it, indeed, at all possible by any amount of special cramming to render them, as a body, competent to form even an approximately intelligent judgment of such a technical matter? How can people draw a conclusion the premises for which they do not and cannot be made adequately to grasp? But the intrinsic absurdity of this proposal is by far the least of the objections to it. The poll would be in itself certainly illegal, and might possibly vitiate any contract with which, it might be mixed up. Whatever money might be expended in takiugfit, the Councillors, in all likelihood, would have to disburse out of their own pockets. Besides other consequential inconveniences, a worse precedent than this cannot be conceived. The matter is far more fundamental than people, on a cursory view, imagine. The thing goes to the very essence of represent itive bodies. These bodies, of whatever sort, great or small, are elected to represent the electorates in all matters whereof (by the wise postulate underlying our whole representative system) they are presumed to be for every reason better qualified to judge than the persons who elected them. The electors a'/tf many in number and unorganised; the electee?' are few and .organised ; the electors are not specially informed, and cannot possibly, as I said, become so ; the elected are, on the contrary ; and it is their bounden duty to be specially informed, and to act and judge in continuity with their light. When, therefore, a statute directs a representative body to remit same special matter to the decision of the electorate, it does a very exceptional thing, and it almost always has a good strong exceptional reason for thus departing from representative principles. It is very clear that when in part X of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1576, a poll is authorised in the matter of borrowing, there was a sufficiently good exceptional reason for it. But when a representative body takes upon itself to direct a poH in a case where the Act does not autho'-ise it, it not only acts illegally, but it establishes one of the worst possible precedents. The American Constitution goes in this direction much farther than ours. The Supreme Court of the United States can pronounce any statute "unconstitutional," and dr:>w its pen through it accordingly. Thus, when the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed a statute authorising the citizens of certain counties to decide by ballot whether the sale of spirituous liquors should be coutinued in those counties, the Supreme Court decided that this was unconstitutional and invalid. Thus, again, when the Legislature of New York passed an Act to establish free schools, but providing that it should not become law until it was accepted by a majority of the votes of the electors of the State, the Court held it void. The Court on this occasion said :—" The Legislature had no power to I make such submission, nor had the people power to bind each other by acting upon it. . . . The Government of this State is a democracy, but it is a representative democracy." Thus will be seen the highly objectionable nature of what is now attempted in this socalled plebiscitum. Let us hope that the Mayor's wonted good sense will re-assert itself, and that he and the Council will come to the conclusion that no possible good can come of this very objectionable prrocedure.—l am, &c, J. 11. Shaw. Wellington, May 16.