Correspondence.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4883, 3 September 1884, Page 2

Correspondence.

These columuuare open to all correspondence of pubic interest, but wo do not hod ovirselves responsib'e lor the opinions of writers'. Correspondence must in all oases be authenticated by the ieal name and address jf the writer—noi necessarily i'or publication, but as «t guarantee o" good faitb.

THE BOKOUGH NOMINATIONS.

the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sic—Will you permit me a word re my objection to the nominations yester* day. First, I have no persona! objection whatever to any candidate. But, having passed through the ordeal several times, I think it is necessary that some defined course should be understood as being' legal; especially as the late Mr Davies, as returning officer, would not accept nomination papers unless they declared, on the face of them the ward or district for which the candidate was nominated. Some of the nominations yesterday not doing so, the Eeturniog Officer can have no right to allocate the particular ward for any candidate which Mr Miller's opinion allows him to" do, and by what system of law or ethics Mr Miller can declare that my objection is of no avail (consequently the nominations are legal) and immediately afterwards point out wherein they are all defective (h-nee illegal), this is rather much law altogether; for now, instead of my objections holding* good to some, the whole nominations, are illegal because given to a . Returning Officer who is not properly appointed to the differents wards or districts.—l am., &c, James JMcGowan.

(To the Editor of the EvsNlKCt StfAR.) Sik, —As the Town Clerk is named in this morning's Advertiser as objecting to the Talidity of certaiu nomination papers, permit me to say that on the Borough being divided into Wards, I went with the late Mr Davies to see Messrs Macdoaald and Miller, and to obtain that firm's ad rice if it was necessary that the appointment of the Returning Officer for the Borough should- be altered from being Keturning Officer for the Borough of Thames to being Keturning Officer for' each division or ward of the Borough and. in what form the nomination papers should be to be legal. We saw Mr Macdonald who after considering carefully the sections of the Act, gave as his opinion that no alteration was required in the appointment of the Returning Officer, but that be would still be Beturmng Officer for the" Borough of Thames as a whole; but that it would be necessary that the nomina* tionp stated in each of them that the person nominated was a candidate for an office in some particular ward, and Mr Macdonald then and there wrote out the form " For the office of Councillor of the —2i Ward of the Borough of Thames at the present election, and such form has always been followed since. Yesterday was the first time I believe that any nomination paper has been offered, ranch less accepted, without showing in it which ward ttw candidate was nominated for. P may state that I did not see the nomination papers until after 12 o'clock yesterday and directly I did so I called the Returning Oiricer's attention to the omission: in the form.—l am, &c,

P. C. Dean.