RATEPAYERS’ ROLL

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 121, 16 February 1937, Page 11

RATEPAYERS’ ROLL

Wellington Poll on Loan

Proposals

COMPANIES’ LOST VOTE

The new Wellington City Council ratepayers’ roll to be used in connection with the loan poll to-morrow week has closed. There has been no special rush of new ratepayers to enrol since it was announced that a new roll was in course of preparation. The number of names added since the last loan poll—when ratepayers sanctioned raising the money for a new public library —is 2237. For the previous poll there were 31,585 names of ratepayers on the roll; there will be 33,822 names on the new roll to be ready this week. This, however, by no means must be taken to indicate that there are that many voters available for next week s poll. As a matter of fact, since the last occasion on which the roll was used, there has been no purging; so that not even the names of ratepayers who have died during the past 18 months Have been removed from the roll.

Legislation passed last session has eliminated all company votes. Hitherto companies owning property in the city could, by passing a motion, vest the power to vote in one of its directors, managers, or servants, but by this amendment to the Electoral Act all companies—no matter how much property they own—have been disfranchised, which means that those concerned in the ownership of some of the biggest and most valuable blocks of land in the city are deprived of the right enjoyed- by the owner of the humblest home in a remote suburb. So that when it comes to the wisdom or otherwise of raising nearly £400,000 for public works the biggest ratepayers have no voice in the matter.