VALIDATION OF VOID POLLS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12737, 10 August 1903, Page 6

VALIDATION OF VOID POLLS.

TO TIIE EDITOR. Sm,—Sour correspondent tie Rev. Peter Ramsay has endeavoured, in a rational way and without calling names, to controvert my contention on this subject, and I owe it to him to explain my position more fully. At ■■the-, present moment a regime of nolicense prevails in Bruce and; Newtown,- not, by virtue of. tho cxpresisect will of the but by reason of the fact that a poll, taken for the purposo of ascertaining tho will of'the people, 'has foeen'declared void by'a'competent court-created) for the purpose-of adjudicating upon the question whether the will of tho people was expressed according to law. Whether rightly or wrongly, that court has exeroiscd its powors by declaring that tho will of t'ho paonfo has not been so expressed. The position, therefore, is that «n act initiated to enable tho electors to give effect to''their, deliberately ! expressed .will has failed of its purpose, in consequenco of no provdsion being made to meet the. case of a poll being declared void. If. tho draughtsman had made provision for such a contingency as has arisen, what' would that provision 'have 'been? Obviously, provision for the talcing of a now poll. My contention is that the Legislature should.place mattes, as nearly as possible, in the samo position as if tho act had contained the necessary provision for new polls (removing, of course, .the absurdities in the act that render ii almost impossible to take a valid poll). The objec- , tion that « poll taken now would bo taken . under entirely different circumstances .is futile, because UiC'same difficulty must have arisen if tho act had contained the necessary provision for taking a second poll: it could . not'-have beeri taken on the day of tho i general cleotion. : Tito, demand for validation, therefore, is an attempt to derive an- advantage from the deficiencies of tlie law—an attempt which involves the virtual setting aside of a judgment, of a court of law—a thing which nothing but extreme necessity cam justify. To set aside a judgment of ft court by an act . would amount, to constituting the Legisttire a court of appeal—a vory dangerous

procesding in a democratic community.: Our courts of lawi ara the only remaining refuge of liberty. ' • _ All tho talk about -Hie majority of electors in Brupe district baing deprived of their rights is not reasoning at all: whatever rights the electors had were rights created ' by. this imperfect law, and they took their , rights, subject to the imperfections and drawbacks 'of that law. The -demand lot', validation is a demand for entirely rights—a demand which, I am convinced, will never be grafted. No-license by act of Parliament would be, something quite different ■from- no-lioense by the will of the people legally expressed. There is one thing "that the Prohibition party should mot forget—that they owe their ' recent success largely to the votes , of people who are not prohibitionists, and. therefore it is a mistake to treat as , an enemy everyone who cannot see -eyo-to-eye with them on ■ everything. It is only a fanatic- that regards the moderate man as worse than a drunkard. I am, etc., Dunedin, August 7. J. MacGkEcoh