CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1771, 26 August 1884, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

REGISTRATION OF ELECTORS. (To the Editor.) , Sir,-If reforms; are to be brought about, they should be urged when the evils which they are intended to remedy are -freah in the niinds of the public. I gather that the only defence you have to set up against the abolition of dual voting,..with its accompaniment of the Maori- vote, is that there are more'important things to be attend'edi to,';' :■ I- differ; frpm you in thinifing tlie : existence of the evil is unimportant,; \but in .this case I must go further, and affirm that it is a matter.the highest, impoto /that the 'return of members to represent this and (other constituencies should not be .governed by a" block vote of Maoris who have their own special representatives, 1 - ji £thd whose power to vote can only haye been gained by an omission or blunder in the Representation Act. That this' vote may • have in the last election: members whom you or I personally' desired to be returned is a very bad reason for being willing to retain it. A 1 wrong of this kind is many edged, and the sword, which is now in your hand; may at any other time bo turned against you. It is a wrong that may be fraught with serious consequences, and, if persisted in and carried out to its full extent, will lead to a conflict between the European and Maori voters which no politician however unscrupulous can wish to risk. It appears that on the question of the necessity of an amendment of the law of registration we are not likely to differ. The qualification to vote is certainly constituted in a spirit of great liberality, and no one can complain if it is desired tohavesufficient guarantees thatthatfranchise shall not be broken through by a system of scrambling registration. The Act of 1879 aims at a kind of de die in diem posting up of the electoral register, and lit seems to me clear that such an attempt necessarily involves failure ! and brings about the evils complained ! of at the last election. The consequence is that there never is a roll of electors until the time of the issuing of a writ; i the roll is then hurriedly made up, [ hundreds of claims are put in, and the constituency finds,itself deluged with perhaps a large foreign element. Residents with undoubted qualifications are left off, and persons whose claims would ! not bear investigation become voters. ( Probably if the Registrar had strictly ' done his duty, comparatively few of : the claimants on the eve of the recent ; election would have beeu on the ' register, and it would at any time be in the power of a Registrar to by strict adherence to the Act large numbers of such late emergency claims. The Registrar has, fifteen days after the receipt of a claim, to inquire as to its validity, and must not put the name on the roll till the end of the fifteen r days. If he has reason to doubt, he i may require the claimant to give proof; 3 if within ten days the Registrar is still t unsatisfied and the claimant adheres to } his claim the question is to go before . the R.M. Probably it would not be 1 heard for at least a week, so that we 1 have here a possible consumption of 32 ! days—quite sufficient to defeat an 5 emergency claim on a sudden election. The system by which a man can at any time get his name on the roll defeats its own end. That which can be done at any time is frequently never done at all, and a system by which a fixed time and the fullest opportunities are given to persons to secure their rights of citizenship, is far more likely to secure a satisfactory registration than that which !s now in force, and which, indeed, has no system about it. The i English system certainly seems to me 1 far better, and secures a far more care- ! fully prepared and accurate roll. When the rolls are made up once in every year, it is the duty of the overseers of the several parishes,, for a given number ot weeks in a given month, to place y a list of all persons in their parish 5 entitled to vote on the principal door j, of every church' and chapel in their parish, Claims to vote and objections to voters are then lodged with the overseers, and these in thoir turn are published on the church and ohapel doors for a given time. The oiiginal J list, claims, and objections ultimately go before the revising barrister for the county, city, or borough, and the lists are formally settled by him in open court after hearing all claims and objections. These lists are then converted 5 into electoral rolls,—in the case of a county by the Clerk of the Peace, in the case of a oity or borough, by the t Town Olerk, and form the roll for the ensuing year. If it be objected that the making up of the 3 roll onoe a year might, if an election occurred shortly before the making up of a roll, preclude a number from voting who have come into the district within the preceding ten or eleven months, I would answer it is a question of degree, for that no matter at what date you make up the roll,, the same evil in some degree must occur, because since the right to vote is ali ways maturing, men who are not 5 actually voters are always in some ! part ef the twelve and six months, 3 which even in the present bad system i may mature between the fifteenth day t before the issue of the writ l and the election; and certainly the interests of those who are permanently settled in 3 the district are more to be considered i than those of new comers and of those , who are merely in the district for -. temporary purposes, and often, even,' not settled residents in this colony, at 3 all, but following the expenditure'of r loans on public works from colony to r colony. Surely the public interests i '.would b'e'far better served by a poll £ made up once a year, and, if the time was so arranged as to secure tho new f roll at a date within a few months of , j the time that elections are usually

[ held, no great harmowould be done to any. !. It may be safely predicted that i no Government would, .except under j very serious embarrassment, bring i about a general election during the i shearing and harvest seasons, and this, i taking the North and South Islands, i takes out at least four months from ! the calculation of twelve. I think .1 that it is worth considering whether : the-Highway Boards should not be i utilised for electoral purposes, and the i clerk to every board be required to ! make out the lists of voters in his dis- < trict and publish them by affixing copies outside the principal door of every church, chapel, post office, town hall, and road board office,..or in some : other conspicuous part of such build- ; ings usually occupied by notices. Ohtuiis and objections should be published in like manner, and the whole ultimately sent to the registrar, An allowance per one hundred names should be made to the clerks to the boards, and actual expenses incurred should be recouped, and they should be held responsible for omission of duty —by disallowanoe of gratuity and expenses, and by penal fine in ca&e of neglect proved. It is impossible to give the full details of such a plan, which practically would involve the drafting of an Act of Parliament, but I believe that such a plan could be carried out which would be in a high degree satisfactory to the electorates, and prevent those uncertainties and improprieties which cause so much discontent and are inherent in the present system., I am, (fee., Robert S. Hawkins.