POLITICAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 172, 11 July 1908, Page 4

POLITICAL.

TilK SECOND BALLOT. The (jloverninent measure providing for inking of a second ballot so as ifo do away with one of the disadvantages of plurality of candidates at an election contains about twenty clauses. Its accompanying nicmoranduni explains that it amends the electoral law by intro

dnciiig tin- system of a second ballot. This system is already ill force in (lerniany in sulistantially the same form as that' proposed by the Bill, and is designed to iirevent any candidate |l a Parliamentary election being returned by a minority of the total number of votes recorded. If at any election no candidate obtains an absolute majority of votes a second ballot is to be held between (he candidates who obtain the lirst and second places at the lirst ballot, the other candidates being excluded. The system is essentially simple and easily worked, and the length of the Bill is due lo tlic iuclusion of a number of clauses dealing with contingencies which will seldom occur, but for which ;. ; <„„,■,/ I.i niiiki. due orovision.

LAW PRACTITIONERS. The object of the Law Practitioners Amendment Bill is to repeal the section of tIK Act of 181)8 which provides that a solicitor may Ik- admitted to practice las a barrister after he ha s practised for live years as a solicitor or as the managing clerk of a solicitor. The rights of solicTtors who have been admitted as such since the passing of the Acl of 1808 are conserved. In a covering note Mr. J. 1) Kalmond, counsel to the Law Drafting Ollice, slates that the repeal of the section has been requested not only by the law societies, hut also by the University of New Zealand, on account of its detrimental ell'eet upon the standard of leal education in the Dominion. "As loug°as it remains on the statute-hook there can lie no reciprocity or equality ol' status between the Bar of Xcw Zea land and that of other parts of the Em pirc," states Mr. Salmond.