CORRESPONDENCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2111, 21 June 1898, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

Under no circumstances whatever is ’the Editor responsib'e for matter contained in correspondence ] (To the Editor.) Sir, —Re Te Aroha BorpughJ3ham informed that a statement is and has boen made that the Burgess Roll upon which the forthcoming Borough elections are to be held, is for a purpose improperly prepared by the Town 'Clerk appointed by the Government. This is not so. The Burgess Roll under sec. 26 of “ The Municipal Corporations Ac", 1885,” must be made up from a list of ratepayers liable to be rated upon properties in the district, and at the-present moment the only available and subsisting list of ratepayers for this district is the Valiiation Roll of the Te Aroha Town District for last year. That Roll with its annual values must be taken by the Town Clerk as the hasis upon which to compile his Burgess Roll. There is no alternative. ; The Town Clerk has no power to dnal.e a List of Ratepayers, nor has anyone else, ai d having taken the only available-List he can neither alter it nor make thereto. To dp otherwise than, hafibeen done', and I say so advisedly, after consultation by request of the Town Board with Mr J. A. Muller, would most probably invalidate the elections to he held. ' It is the case, however, that defaulting ratepayers of the Town Board should not'be excluded from the Burgess Roll "of the Borough and upon the Roll as ■'now signed their Dames are inserted.—l ani, etc., P. Gilchrist. T.e Aroha, 20th June, 189-5.