The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1879.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5583, 19 February 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1879.

In the public journals we now frequently see notices calling attention to the fact that the annual period for presenting claims by persons desiring to be placed on the roll of electors in the respective districts is rapidly passing away ; with these notices are also combined complaints of the apathy apparently existing in regard to a subject so important, as shown by the very small number cf applications made to the Registration Officers. There are very good reasons, we think, why the number of new applications, legitimately made, should be small, and that reason is that the rolls are already full, and that nearly every man who possesses even the shadow of a legal qualilication for the enjoyment of the privilege of the franchise is now an elector. There were, as we have seen from the Census returns, last year, twenty-nine thousand separate holdings above one acre in extent in the Colony, and we may assume that the number of holdings of less size than an acre, little town and suburban sections which the “ poor man ” had acquired in fee, and upon which he had made his “home” in the way that bestsuitshis purpose,—would bo found to be very greatly in excess of the number of the larger holdings. As a matter of fact, it will seen presently that the aggregate of names of electors now actually upon the rolls in the several electoral districts of the Colony is nearly eighty thousand; besides which there are fifteen or sixteen thousand persons engaged in gold-mining, all of whom who are holders of miners’ rights or business licenses on goldfields would be qualified to vote upon their miners’ rights or licenses without registration. As then there are, as statistical and official returns prove, about ninety-five thousand persons qualified to vote to-day, if the occasion presented itself, out of the whole number of the adult males in the Colony estimated at 115,000, one reason for the apparent apathy which is complained of becomes evident enough. There is, however, another reason, and that is that householders and freeholders are everywhere subjected to taxation, and that, under the provisions of the Registration of Electors Amendment Act, 1875, the officials of Borough Councils, County Councils, and Highway Districts are required to make up annual lists of their ratepayers, and to forward them to the Registration Officer of the district before the seventh day of April in every year, in order that the names maybe duly inserted upon the electoral roll of the district for the year current. In this way the ratepayer is spared even the small trouble of making a claim for himself. In some places, particularly in the North, tho services of the officials we have named are supplemented by tho volunteer services of enthusiastic “ liberals ” who are persistent in their annual efforts to add to the voting power of the “party,” in order to secure the freedom of tho people, and the return of their men to Parliament. These devoted men are always ready, munificently, to endow an aspirant who desires to have a voice in the management of his own affairs and to be a member of the House of Representatives, —with the necessary bogus qualification. The Constitutional Association at Auckland, and Mr. Duxdox in tho North, have rendered conspicuous service to tho cause of freedom and of purity of election in this way. But lest there should be persons who, not being freeholders, or leaseholders, or householders, or ratepayers, or miners,— but only friendless orphans in party politics,—a benevolent General Assembly passed an Act in the year 1875 “to “ qualify persons living in lodgings to “ vote at the election of Members of the “ House of Representatives, and to enable “ such persons to be registered on the “ Electoral Boll.” Clause 2of that Act is as follows: — o Besides the qualifications which immediately before the passing of this Act entitled persons to vote in the election of members of the House of EeproHcotativcs, overy male person shall, in ana after the year commencing on the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-six, be entitled to be registered as a voter, and, when registered, to vote for a member or members to serve in the House of Representatives for an electoral district, who is qualified as follows, that is to say,— . . . 1 1. Is of full age and not subject to any legal incapacity: and , lt lit 2. As a lodger has occupied in the same electoral district separately and as a sole tenant, for twelve months preceding the last day of December in any year, tho same lodgings such lodgings being part of one and the same dwelling house, and of a clear yearly value, if let unfurnished, of ten pounds or upwards; 3 Has resided in such lodgings during the twelve months immediately preceding tho last day of December in such year, and has claimed to be registered as a voter at tho next ensuing registration of voters.

The payment of sixpence halfpenny a night for a bedroom cannot be considered an excessively high qualification for a memherof the General Assembly. Indeed he might still owe the money to his landlady, and plead the privilege of Parliament during session, if he would only take the trouble to qualify himself for a seat in the House by sending iu his claim to be made an elector. Notwithstanding all these facilities, and inducements, the Premier of the Colony was able in March last to assure an enthusiastic audience of ladies and gentle-

men at Dunedin that one hundred and ten thousand adult males, the pith and marrow of the people of New Zealand, were utterly deprived of all voice in the management of their own affairs ; he breathed the same hairowing tale into the sympathetic ears of “ the Fair “Maiden by the Sea” at Oamaru a few days later, and although his numbers fell to 70,000 in the House, in August, he'was obliged, with tears, to abandon their cause, his grief on being prevented by the Legislative Council from doing justice to both races at once was really so overpowering. Ilhas been said that the Lodger Franchise Act was inoperative and unworkable. Inoperative it has been, ho doubt, but only because, as we have said, the rolls are already as full as, with the number of our population, they can fairly be made; but unworkable it certainly is not. We are not less anxious than our contemporaries, who have already drawn attention to the subject of registration, to see the franchise extended and exercised as widely possible. Lodgers may be said to be the only people who can now escape involuntary registration as ratepayers, and if there bo any amongst them not on an electoral roll who have the qualification of continuous residence in one house for a year, and who pay the modest sum of ten pounds for that accommodation, we say to them Register, Register, Register !