NINE WARDS PROVIDED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19391, 28 July 1926, Page 14

NINE WARDS PROVIDED.

THE METHOD OF VOTING. DUAL ELECTION SYSTEM. ALLOCATION OF TONNAGE VOTES [UY TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL REPORTER. ] WELLINGTON. Tuesday. The system of election set forth in the Dairy Produce Export Control -Amendment Bill is a dual one involving personal votes exercised by suppliers and socalled tonnage votes exercised by dairy companies in a manner determined by' the personal votes of their suppliers. The Dominion is divided into nine wards, six in the North Island and three in the South Island, each returning one producers' representative on the board and all exporting approximately equal quantities of dairy produce.

The persons entitled to vote in any ward are producers who supply milk or cream to a factory situated within the ward and manufacturing dairy produce for export. Each producer is to be entitled to one vote in the ward and 110 more. If a producer supplies to more than one factory in a ward he may choose to which factory his vote is to be credited. If he supplies to factories in two or more wards he is to have one vote in each ward. Every ballot paper is to bear the number of the ward and the name of the factory. Voting is to be by post. • On receiving the papers the returning officer must group them according to factories. The factory groups are then to be assembled according to the companies owning or occupying tho respective factories, For _ the purpose of the bill "company" is held to mean an association of persons, whether incorporate or unincorporate. The candidate receiving the largest number of votes from a company's suppliers is to receive the whole of the tonnage votes allotted to that company. The tonnage votes are allotted in accordance with the quantity of dairy produce made and exported by a company in the immediately preceding period of 12 months commencing on April 1. The quantity is to be determined by the Government Statistician, and is to include only produce loaded into an overseas ship which has Left the port of loading. For. the purpose of computation two tons of cheese are made equivalent to one ton of butter. Fourteen crates and 40 boxes make a ton of cheese and of butter respectively. Each company is entitled to one vote for every 20 tons or fraction of 20 up to 500 tons, and one vote for every additional 30 tons or fraction of 30 in excess of 500 tons. In the event of a tie in the suppliers' votes of any company the tonnage votes of that company are to be divided equally between the equal candidates. In the event of a tie in the aggregate tonnage votes the candidate receiving the greater number of suppliers' votes is to be declared elected.

The wards are defined by county boundaries. They are described roughly as follows:—(1) North Auckland and Auckland as far as the southern boundaries of Franklin and Manukau Counties; (2) South Auckland, from Raglan south to Ohura and eastward to Matamata, those three counties included: (3) Waikato County, the Coiromandel Peninsula and the Bay of Plenty and Taupo districts; (4) North Taranaki; (5) South Taranaki and Manawatu down to. and including Kairanga County; (6) Poverty Bay, HaWke's 'Bay, and Wairarapa; (7) Westland, Nelson, Marlborough and North Canterbury; (8) South Canterbury and Otago; (9) Southland. It is provided that wards may bo redefined by Order-in-Council after an election; having regard to a community of interest among producers, and with the object of securing a nearer approximation of equality in output among the wards. The present representatives of the producers on the board are to be allocated to a ward each by Order-in-Council, the wards to be as far as possible those im which they have respectively their abodss or places of business. They are to represent those wards for the remainder of their present terms of office. The other clauses of the bill provide that the cost of elections is to be borne by the board, and that the board, in addition to its present power of appointing London agents, may appoint two of its members to irepresent it in London.