Tuapeka Times. AND GOLOFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1874. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 381, 12 August 1874, Page 2

Tuapeka Times. AND GOLOFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1874. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

We once more feel ourselves compelled to allude to Hospital matters. The abortion of the late meeting demands some notice at our hands. A meeting of Hospital subscribers is advertised for a particular night, and is adjourned owing to the unpreparedness of the Committee ; and vvlien the subscribera come together, they are met by a ruling on the part of the Chairman of a clause in the Hospital Ordinance, taken in connection with the Hospital Rules, which has the effect of rendering every act of the Hospital subscribers illegal ; the Committee are illegally elected, the payments they make, the reaolutkmsthey have passed, including the rise in salaries, are all illegal. It is impossible, according to the President's ruling, for any Committee for the last four years a,t least to. establish a claim to

a legal ienure of office. If we understood him aright, no subscription paid in December gives the payer any privilege to vote in January ; and no Committee, according to the Ordinance, can be elected unless the electors have paid their subscription a month before the statutory day of election, which falls in January — i.e., when the power to vote has ceased to the subscriber. The electors have no power to elect, the Committee no right to act, and consequently the President no right to preside, the Treasurer no right to receive or give payments. Of all the legal refinements this is to us the most curiously interesting. The Chairman has actually sawn the timber under the subscribers, the Committee, and himself, and landed all conjointly into the limbo of fools. Well we must hold ourselves in honorable company. We shall expect, however, as the consequence of this ruling, that the Chairman will see his own illegal position, and all the Committee see theirs, and the next will be that we shall be without a Committee altogether, and the' Hospital I sent on a voyage to Hong Kong or any j where else, but how to get it back again ; to its native moorings is more than our skill in legal navigation can determine. We are just afraid it may meanwhile tie the prey of contending storms. But of course our readers want to know the \ grounds of such ruling. We have since the President came into our neighborhood believed him to be both conscientious and painstaking, and we are disposed to treat that ruling as the bonafide conviction of an honorable and intelligent mind in an emergency case. The ruling is founded on the Hospital Ordinance of 1870, taken in connection with the local Hospital Rules. The clause in the former runs as" follows: — " Notwithstanding anything in the said Hospital Ordinance, 1862, to the contrary, no contributor to the funds of any Hospital shall be entitled to vote at any meeting for the election of the committee ov other officers of such Hospital, unless such contributor shall be of the full age of twenty-one years and shall have paid his annual contribution j of £1 at the least, or an amount of £10 i in one sum to the funds of such Hospital at least one month before the date of shall be held. " T h is , taken by itself, it seems to us, would glvo results as follows : That no one paying his contribution at the annual meeting is entitled to vote, and that the payment of one pound, unless understood as implying an obligation to continue the like sum from year to year, does not entitle to vote. But when the practice is established asfyearly, the sum, if paid a month before the annual meeting, will entitle the party to all the rights of an annual subscriber for the year, and the beginning of that year is virtually fixed by the Ordinance for a month before the annual meeting. The annual £1 contribution paid therefore any time during the year preceding (up to within a month of the annual meeting) entitles one to vote for members of Committee, and we take it at the quarterly meeting of subscribers for the year following — the only apparent exception to that ruling we hold to ba the case of the election of an officer afc au other than the anuual meeting. In that case the rule seems to require that the subscription be paid one month previous to the election, though we by no means regard this as absolutely the intention of the Ordinance. To read the Ordinance so is to require two lf annual contributions" within one year. But the President's ruling was not founded on the Ordinance taken by itself ; but as taken iv connection with the Rules of the Hospital. The 17th Rule fixes the legal privileges of a subscriber from the Ist of January to tho following January, and here, I because the local Rules are at variance '. with the Ordinance, the President has ruled that the legal period prefixed by the Rules ends on 31st December, and by giving his preference to 1 the Rules he disfranchises all the subscribers to the Hospital, ' himself among them. But what is the course of law when local byelaws are in conflict with a public ordinance ? We believe in all cases the ordinance over-ridea the miles. Ou these grounds we hold the Chairman' 3 ruling to be erroneous. We must therefore be allowed to express our regret that discussion was burked iv the way that ib was. j intentionally wo do not believe, but by misadventure. Of course the Committee will have to meet and consider their position, and it will have to be left with them in the meantime to repair this wrong, if wrong has been done by the ruling on the above occasion.

Thus far we had prepared for last Saturday's issue, when we were crowded out to make way for other matters. After reading and publishing the Chairman's defence of his ruling we considered it best to allow our leader to go forth as we had penned it. We are glad to find the Chairman thus far to agree with us that if the rulea are repugnant to the Ordinance, "they can have force only to the extent they may be free from such repugnancy," which is in effect saying what we had affirmed. To clear it, however, of that repugnancy, the Chairman proposes what we fear is chimerical, and what has, in addition, the disadvantage of being offensive to the least wealthy friends of the.' institution. Is it likely that J. Clarke, Esq., J. P. Neil, Esq., Captain Mackenzie, and Messrs. Herbert and Co. will come together for the purpose of instituting a meeting at which only an adjournment can take place. But allowing these paities thus to take precedence of those whose contributions are humbler, though it may be greater in proportion to their means, it would be difficult to prevent the latter from feeling slighted by the arrangement. For our own part we are not inclined to act on xhe suggestion, the more especially as it is in the meantime a side issue which is preventing the frfie expression of opinion on the part of the contributors to the Hospital on its wasteful management. Seeing another

Ordiuance has bean passed, -we do not know if it would be worth while to get counsel's opinion to determine the matter, else we should at once propose that step. A public meeting would, we believe, give the general impression of the subscribers on the point which this legal quibble has postponed. Mr. Squires, in his observations at the meeting, seemed to wish this ; and some gratitude ia due to him for the trouble he has incurred in bringing these abuses to light. The public, meanwhile, cannot express their views, according to this ruling, at a Hospital meeting, but there is nothing to prevent them doing it at a public meeting. The concluding sentence of Mr. Carew's letter is somewhat indefinite in itd aim. If it is- intended to defend the legality of the present Committee by saying that ' ' there is nothing in the Ordinance requiring them to be contributors," we would remind the writer that such a remark does | not bear upon the point. Their money qualifications are not in dispute — but the legality of their election. The parties who elected them, according to the ruling, had no right to elect, and therefore the Committee and their acts are illegal. Moreover, if there is not anything in the Ordinance requiring members of Committee to be contributors, so neither is there anything that would prevent any subscriber, of however small a sum, being present at a quarterly meeting, and either approving or condemning the action of the Committee, or the management of the institution. The only thing the £1 contribution qualifies for is the election of Committee or officers of the institution. Further, while Puile XVII., fixes the legal privileges of a member from January to January, there is nothing to shew that the payment made within the year of privilege is, in fact, made for that year ; and there is evidence in the statement made by Mr. Matthew Hay at the meeting, corroborated by subscribers, that there was " 3pecial appropriation by the donors " for tite year following the middle of December. Mr. Hay stated th.it he got the subscriptions on the understanding that the subscribers were to vote the following year ; aud it that is not tho " special appropriation " meant by the Chairman, we should like to know what else can be. In conclusion, if this ruling does not dicfrjindiise the Chairman and the Committee, it has no "right to disfranchise the subscribers.