CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1022, 14 March 1882, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

DOG REGISTRATION, AND RABBITDOGS. , » To tub Editor. Sir.—lt has been shown that the Rabbit Nuisance Act and the Dor Registration Actß jumble and conflict with each other. Such being the case it would have been better for County Councils to have i osponed action under them until our legislators had rectified all this bungling. Even now it is worth considering whether it would not be possible 10 retrace the steps already token, or at any rate to suspeud further aetion, lest a persist ance. in the course adopted should make cunfusinn worse confounded. The Babbit Nuisance Act, Clause 22, reads thus:—" All dugs duly certified by the Inspectors as kept solely for the purpose of destroying rabbits, shall be exempt from fee or charge on registration under any Act in force within the district." It therefore seems clear that the law intended that Rabbit Inspectors, when called upon by owners of rabbit dogs, should give certificates that such dogs are as described, and that aucli certificates should exempt them from fee or charge as above.

The Dog Registration Act Ameudment Act 1881, incorporated with the Act of 1880, is only a permissive one. It states that tho local authority "may,"—uot ,!' shall"—do such and such things in connection with registration. Any bow the "question arißoe," has a County Council

(the inferior budjr) tho power to make regulations concerning dogß quite antagonists to the Rabbit Nuisanoe Act, a law passed by the. superior body, the Parliament of the Colony. Would not such regulations be" ultra vires" ? It might be said that after what has already been done it would be impossible to stop proceedings. The answirto that U that is injustice and illegality have been and are still going on, the sooner they are stopped the better, I believo that mutters might be adjusted now without very much difficulty, but the longer this is postponed the more difficult it will be.

I am &c, J. Valentine Smith. |Mr Smith overlooks the fact that the Dog Act is "an Act to compel the registration of dogs," the permissive clause in it is intended to give local bodies the power to collect the cost of registration,. not to give them any option as to registration omonregistration -En. W.D.J