VOTING AT LOCAL ELECTIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10072, 18 June 1910, Page 5

VOTING AT LOCAL ELECTIONS.

DISABILITIES OF PUBLIC COMPANIES. The disabilities under which public companies and institutions labour in the matter of voting at local elections has of late occupied the attention of a number of local budies in various parts of the Dominion. The law gives such companies the right to vote through their representative who pays the rates fir tnem, and to whom demands for rates are address, ed, bat it would appear in practice that it is nearly always the case that such representative h already on the roll as a ratepa}er for his own private property, and the company is in consequence disfranchised.

This matter came before the meet ing of the Masterton Chamber of Commerce yesterday afternoon, a communication b ing received from the Napier Chamber of Commerce enclosing a copy of a letter addressed by the Chamber to ,the Minister of Justice on the subject. At a recent meeting of the Napit r Chamber of Commerce, one memli r p inted out that the institution urn* n he represented paid £l4O per annum in Borough rates, but had not a vote, and it transpired that a large proportion of members at the meeting represented companies or i stitutions whirh were similarly disfranchised, and it was considered that the earne anomaly [must occur throughout the Dominion. It would appear, according to the Napier Cba uocr's letter to the Minister of Justice, that the only means such a companr could employ to obtain a vote would be to .create a dummy representative to pay their rates, which would be a very undesirable practice. The Napiei Chamber desired the local Chamber of Commerce to give the subject their careful consideration with a view if possible to relieve companies and institutions of their present disability. said that as the law now stood a great injustice was done to companies and institutions. [He considered the better plan as far as the Masterton Chamber was concerned would be to "bring the 1 matter under the notice of„tbe members for Masterton and Wairarapa, and ask these gentlemen to support the proposed Bill dealing; with the subject when it came before the House of Representatives. Mr Hunter said that this course appeared to be the only one open for the Cnamber. Alter some further discussion it was decided on the motion of Mr Summerell, seconded by Mr Carey, that Messrs A. W. Hogg and W. C Buchanan, M.'sP., be written to, asking them to support the Bill in question when it comes before the House.