AMENDMENT ACT.

THE ELECTION OF MAYOR

PROPOSED ALTERATION

(Parliamentary Reporter)

WELLINGTON, Tuesday

Yesterday the Hon. Mr Herdman circulated his"Municipal Corporations Act Amendment, which contains some important amendments, several of which will be welcomed by municipalities and several are certain to raise a storm of contention iv local 'government circles. Fresh provisions aro made for the constitutions'of; now boroughs, and for the alteration of boundaries of'existing boroughs. Greater powers are given to Councils to give access from one street to another, particularly in tho way of constructing subways for which loans may bo raised, or a special rate levied on the locality concerned. The restrictions on tho formation of private streets are somewhat modified. Tho Governor*"" may, by Order in Council, authorise the Council to lay or permit to be laid off streets and private streets of a width less than sixty-six feet, but not les than forty feet, for the purpose of connecting blind streets with other streets, but no such connecting street of a groater length than two chains shall be authorised. In this section "blind street" means a street opening at one end on a public street and at tne other end on private land or on a private way.

The Council may also engago iv the business of selling coal or coke on such terms as it thinks fit. Councils are also given power to establish services for the conveyance of passengers and goods within the borough by other means than trams and railways.

Power is also given for licensing, inspecting and regulating boardinghouses (not being nouses for which publicans' licenses are held) in which persons are lodged for hire for a single night or for less than one week at one time, or any part of which is let for any term loss than a week at ono time.

But by far tho most radical alteration in tho existing law is the provision contained in clause 5, which provides for the election of the Mayor by the Council and not by the ratepayers. "There shall be a Mayor of every borough, who shall be elected by the Council from among its members at a meeting of the Council to be hold for that purpose on the first Wednesday in May iv every year." This clause is a reversion to the law as it stood in .1867, and is certain to bo hotly resisted by a large section of the House. The evolution of how Mayors in New Zealand came to be elected is told in an interesting way by Mr T. Lindsay Buick in his chapter on "The Pioneers" in "Old Marlborough." . Writing of the growth of municipal life in Blenheim, he mentions that that town was created a Borough in 1867 ,tho Mayor being elected by the Council. "In tho following years,'' ho says,'' the Council elected Mr

Henry Dodson to the position of Chief Magistrate, but the mode of his election was not at all in keeping with his notions of representative institutions. His contention was that the Mayor should derive his authority from a wider constituency than the eight men sitting round the Council table, and so he proposed that the Mayor of the Borough should be elected by the ratepayers. To this tho city fathers agreed, but as there was no legal provision for such a course, it was arranged at Mr Dodson's suggestion, that a poll of the burgesses should be taken, and that the Council should pledge itself to elect the candidate to whom the ratepayers gave the greatest number of votes. Thus for several years the Mayors of Blenheim were unofficially chosen by the people, anil so favourably was the innovation regarded that a Bill was introduced into Parliament in 1875, entitled "The Blenheim Mayors' Bill," giving to the ratepayers of the town the right to elect the head of their Council directly at the ballot box. The Bill never became law, but the Government were so impressed with the idea that they included the provision in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1576, and so the measure of reform which Blenheim asked for itself was given to the whole colony. "