MINERS' FRANCHISE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 456, 6 June 1863, Page 5

MINERS' FRANCHISE.

(To the Editor of the Daily Times.)

Sin, —On behalf of the Otasro miners, I request information as to 1 lie correct'interpretation of the Act No 10, passed cm 9lh September, 1862. t.o regulate the miners' franchise; anil I particularly request y ur attention to Ciausu 111 ; and whether or not miners who Imve hecti here for over 18 months, and hive held rights dining that time, are to he disfv mehised simply because their first right wli»n out of date, and. of 110 further use, was des'royed or lost. I have held miners' rights since September, 18'], and never left the Province, but on taking out second right destroyed the first, being out A date.. Am I and others in the ?ame porition to ba dish-a'ichis^d] If s.i, I say tliat wo and others are shamefully defrauded out of our just rights and privilege.?. The returning; oliiccr, Major O kvr, lead the Act to me, aml says I must produce my old miner's right on recording my vote at i.lie election, an I will not allow my referriug to ths records ia !ii) office for proof of my residence here since jtepterub-r, 18(31. Yours, &c, A. MoKTQOMERY. Tuapeka, June 3rd, 1883. P.S — Out of over 23,000 miners 1 believe not 50 can produce their first miners' ritrht, therefore, nearly all would be disfraehised. [We fear there is no retno!/ for what our correspondent computing of but in an amended Act of the Assembly. The frnmers o* the present \at undoubtedly did not know the effect of the restrictions they enforced ; it Wiinld be folly to suppose that they meant out of 20,000 miners less than abu-iilr.-til to lie qualified. We believe our correspondent is quite correct in stating* that such is the wise. Ths Act requires the possession of a miner's right consecutively from the Ist April to the Ist October. To qualify, therefore, on a single miner's right for say the present election, the document must have been in force six months before last October, or. in other words, must, hays been t:ikcn out from the Ist of October, 1861. to the Ist april, 1862 Any Rights taken out between those terms would be valid, inasmuch as they would have been in force between April and October. But then the earliest would have expired so lorn? a^o as October and tho litest on the l«t April last; and minors rarely keep their Miners' Eights. Perhaps the Government U to blamf. as much as anyone, for not having issned public I notices warning miners to keep their Eights. Another cla«s of hhu.'TS may qualify on the score of possessing two Miners' Kighfs. Thus if a Hia,lit expired between April and Octob?r. its renewal by another right would be sufficient qualification for voting. But the renewal must be without any interval between, aud miners seldom are particular about allowing a few days to elapse between the expiration of one rii*llt and the procuring another one. We fancy, therefore, there will be few persons qualified to vote on the strength of two miners' lights, and of those wlio had iv one right a sufficient qualification few will have preserved it, and its production is absolutely necessary —Ed D. 2 I.]