THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL ORDINANCE.

Press, Volume I, Issue 13, 17 August 1861, Page 1

THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL ORDINANCE.

At a public meeting held in iSyttelton on tho SOth of July, for the purpose of receiving the" report of the deputation chosen to confer with the Superintendent, as to certain details connected with the Municipal Ordinance, the following resolution was passed by a very small majority of those present, «« That a petition be presented to His Honor the Superintendent, requesting him to proclaim Lyttelton, with its suburbs, a a Municipal District." Now, we find the third clause of the Municipal Council Ordinanco, as follows, " It shall be lawful for the Superintendent, with the ndvice of the Executive Council, on the receipt of a petition signed by not less than one hundred householders resident within any such town, praying that such town may be declared a municipal district under this ordinance to cause the substance and prayer of such petition to be published in the 'Government Gazette,' and (if no counter petition signed by an equal or greater number of householders resident within such locality shall have been delivered at the office of tho Provincial Secretary, within one month from the date of such publication), the Superintendent with the advice aforesaid, may, if he think fit, declare by proclamation such town a municipal district, by a name to be mentioned in such proclamation, and may also define the limits and boundaries of such municipal district and such limits and boundaries at any time thereafter in the same manner may vary and alter, but so as in no case, save as hereinafter mentioned, to include within the limits or boundaries of such municipal district an area of more than three square miles, and upon the publication of any such proclamation in tho«Government Gazette,' such locality so defined shall be deemed and taken to be a municipal district within the meaning of this Ordinance." We learn then from this clause, that if the petition named in the resolution passed by the meeting at Lyttelton receive a hundred signatures, and no counter petition signed by a larger number be presented within one month after the prayer of the petition be gazetted, the town of Lyttelton will be proclaimed a Municipal District. In the mean time, we wish to call attention to certain provisions of this Ordinance, not in a spirit hostile to the desire for self government displayed by a portion of the inhabitants of Lyttelton, but in order that those acquiescing in the resolution cither tacitly.

or by affixing their names to the petition, may do so i with their eyes open. ( And first let us refer to an obvious injustice in the i clause already quoted :— J This third clause gives power to the Superintendent, i on the receipt of an unopposed petition signed by one ] hundred householders resident in any town, to proclaim { such town a municipal district, and also to include 1 within the boundaries of such municipal district a ; portion of the adjacent country so as to combine in i the whole an area of three square miles; that is to ] say, this clause enables one hundred householders of a < town with certain defined boundaries, of larger or smaller extent (such as Lyttelton, Christchureh, or j Kaiapoi) to impose, with the consent of the Super- ; intendent, the Municipal Ordinance on an area of not > more than three square miles, the inhabitants of which area outside the defined boundary of the town petitioning, have had no voice in the matter, but have perhaps been actually precluded from expressing their opinions at the public meetings held for tho purpose of proposing tho question. Wo believe that this was literally tho case at Kaiapoi. Now we cannot but think that this portion of the Ordinance gives to the towns a somewhat unfair advantage over the inhabitants of large, and it may be, populous districts in their suburbs. Surely it would be only fair that the imposition of the Ordinance should be confined to the boundaries already defined of the Town petitioning, unless the consent of the inhabitants of the out-lying districts had been previously obtained. We next find that every municipal district is to be governed by a council consisting of nine members, exercising most arbitrary powers, without appeal, even to the forcible entry at its pleasure, during the day, by itself or by its ofiicers, of any house or premises within the district, without any warrant from the Resident or any other magistrate. Now wo naturally ask, how is this oligarchy to be elected ; we turn to the Ordinance, and find that they are to be elected en viasse; that is to say, that the whole of the electors of the municipal district aro to elect the whole nine members. But under the present circumstances of our towns, nothing can be more objectionable than this. Wo should have supposed before looking into the Ordinance, that the district asking for self-government, and extending perhaps over an area of three square miles, would have been divided into wards, each ward returning one or more members; so that all the separate interests contained in this large area would have been adequately represented. We have in a former article argued, that in the present circumstances of our towns, great injustice was likely to occur from any uniform system of rating: that some parts of Lyttelton and Christchureh have already been greatly benefitted by large outlays of Public money; whilst other parts of these towns, have been uniformly neglected, so that all do not start fair; and now we find that tho Municipal Ordinance endorses and perpetuates this state of affairs; it virtually gives the power of taxation, and the disbursement of the revenue so derived to these favoured districts. The past expenditure of public money in certain parts of these towns has caused a fictitious massing of the population in them; in Lyttelton, in the district in the immediate neighbourhood of Norwich Quay; in Christchurch, in a small area concentred around the intersection of Cashel and Colombo streets. Thus the election of nine members of the council as proposed by the Ordinance must throw the choice of members virtually into the hands of fractional interests of these communities. The result may possibly be, that the cluster of population already formed by artificial means, may have the power of perpetuating its advantages and enhancing the value of its property at the expence of outlying districts already unfairly neglected: a far from equitable adaptation of the principle that, to him that hath shall be given more abundantly. For example, are the inhabitants of the site of the old bush at the back of Lyttelton : prepared to be taxed in order to keep Norwich Quay in repair j it is not at all unlikely to como to that unless they have a separate ward and a separate representative on the board. A.nd thus great injustice is likely to accrue. We think, therefore, most decidedly that this should be amended before the Ordinance is imposed upon any town, and we should propose that towns coming under this Ordinance should be subdivided into as many wards as the interests of its particular localities might require, each ward returning jts member or members to the council. In this man-

ner, and by somewhat enlarging the number of the i council, and also increasing the quorum to eight or : nine, instead of five members, we think that equal justice might be obtained. And the division of towns < into wards would greatly obviate the injustice complained of in the third clause of the Ordinance. For on the proclamation of the town (with its original boundaries, as we proposed) a municipal district, any outlying district, if sufficient in area and population, might be constituted a fresh ward with its own members representing its own interests, and be amalgamated with the municipal district. But there are other difficulties which are likely to arise in the working of this Ordinance. Clauses 24 and 27 enact that tho rates shall be paid by the " Tenant or occupier of the land or premises, or in case there shall be no tenant or occupier, by the proprietor thereof;" and that all rates "may be recovered in a summary way." How is it contemplated that this provision shall operate in the case of absentees? The words "in a summary way" limit the power of recovery to *' distress and sale of goods and chattels," as we learn by the eighth section of the " Summary proceedings Ordinance" of 1842. There is no power given to sell the land; nor is there any power to reach the absentee owner through his agent. It seems therefore that in such cases the rates must accumulate on the land of absentees, and the arrears to any amount may be recovered if the owner can at any time be brought into court. But may these arrears be recovered from an incoming tenant ? The Ordinance is so loosely worded that the point is open to doubt: we are inclined to think that the tenant would become liable for the whole of the arrears of rate. If we turn to the Road Ordinance of 1856, (an Ordinance we may observe which is still in force, and ought to have been specially repealed within the municipal districts,) we find that this difficult point was specially dealt with; for by Clause 39 the arrears of rate were made recoverable from the incoming tenant within six years; that is the rates for the previous six years only could be recovered : so that the liability of the tenant was clearly defined. Without claiming for the Road Ordinance any superiority as to the intention of the law, it certainly has the advantage of having dealt with an obvious difficulty which the Municipal Ordinance consigns again to the region of doubt and litigation. The difficulty we are pointing out is not a merely theoretical one ; it involves the successful working of the whole law. So much of our town lands is still unoccupied and in the hands of absentees, that if rates can only be collected from the occupiers the charges must press with great weight on the inhabitants; who will virtually be taxed for the purpose of increasing the value of property which is positively exempt from taxation: this would be a great wrong. On the other hand if rates are to accumulate on unoccupied land without limit, there is a great premium placed on keeping such lands unoccupied; an equal evil in the opposite direction. We believe the difficulty is solved in America by a power to sell the land itself after the arrears amount to a certain sum ; but not having the authorities before us we speak diffidently on this point. This latter, however, is a system which would not be acceptable here. So far as we remember it was discussed and rejected in 1856; and the plan of limiting the arrears of rate to six years was adopted as a practical compromise in the Road Ordinance in 1856.

We are far from wishing to dissuade any of our towns from adopting municipal institutions, and especially Lyttelton, to which they wouid be eminently useful. From the commencement of our local government in Canterbury the Superintendents and Provincial Councils have made successive attempts to introduce some system of local management in these purely local matters. The people have resisted these attempts from the dread of taxation. There has been a strong feeling that, so long as the land fund afforded the means of keeping the public works in order, taxation ought to be resisted. As the demands on the Land Fund increase with the increasing area of the country settled, the portion of that fund available for towns which have already had a large share of such expenditure, must obviously diminish ; and the necessity of the inhabitants of towns looking to some other source of revenue as the means of keeping these public works in repair will become more and more evident. The present Government has endeavoured to induce the towns to accept municipal institutions by the promise of endatvments, first of the reserves already

existing in the towns, secondly of rural lands to be selected for the purpose. On the policy of these reserves we withhold any opinion for the present; but one or two difficulties occur to us as to the possibility of effecting them. First, is it quite clear that the Superintendent and Provincial Council have the power of making such reserves ? Reserves may only be made " for the uses

of the Provincial Government and for other public purposes." Is it quite clear that these words will admit of reserves for endowments for a corporation ? We believe that a doubt on this point was raised when a proposal was made by the late Superintendent to reserve endowments for schools. We do not wish to five any opinion on the point, but would suggest to the people of Lyttelton that if their sole reason for adopting the Municipal Ordinance be the possession of an endowment of 4000 acres of land, it may be well to o-et an opinion from the Attorney-General as to whether such endowments would be legal. Secondly, we have doubts whether the Ordinance gives sufficient power of managing such lands. The fifth clause explicitly states that the Corporation shall exercise no powers except such as are granted by the Ordinance. Now the same clause gives a power of "purchasing and holding lands and tenements," but does not give any power of leasing, letting, or managing such lands ; and it is very doubtful whether such powers can be inferred, where the limitation of power is so definite and peremptory. On the whole it appears to us that the Ordinance is so defective from vagueness that it must be amended in many particulars if endless litigation is to be avoided; and that a delay of a few months until these points are settled would probably save much trouble hereafter.