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Poverty Bay Independent, Volume I, Issue 11, 16 May 1885, Page 2

One of the leading card-s of the ensuing session will apparently be the extension of local self governing powers; and although we are bound to welcome any movement calculated to give a more general diffusion of those powers which, up to the present time, it has been the invariable custom to delegate tn the few, yet we cannot but feel some grave apprehensions as to the result of conferring any additional authority upon local bodies as at present constituted and elected. In a previous issue we called our readers attention to the fact that, under the existing order of things the election of a member to any local board rests entirely in the hands of the few, and that the many, although nominally in possession of the municipal franchise, have really no power whatever, save and except, as in one or two instances witnessed in this Borough, where the few, being most anxious to secure their representative, wasted so many votes on their special favourites as to inadvertantly leave the third place open to the “outsiders.” For a Parliament, composed of representative men returned by an almost universal franchise, to delegate any of its powers to another body of men returned under the present restricted and narrow conditions which regulate municipal elections, is undoubtedly a dangerously retrogressive step, and one which all true progressionists should, as far as possible, discountenance and obstruct. The only argument which, as far as we know, it has been attempted to use in favor of the present objectionable system of plural local voting is that the local franchise is rightly based upon an essential property qualification, and that holders of property have a greater stake in the place than the ordinary working man. But in answer to this we may ask, of what value would property be without the presence of the ignored working man; and who really pays the rates, the workman tenant who pays his weekly rent, or the landlord or agent who simply collects it ? No matter who nominally hands the taxes to the local body, it is plain that the tenant really pays them, and, consequently, he is justly and fairly entitled to an equal representation in all matters where the expenditure of his products are concerned. Many things—and especially the present reckless and partial expenditure of funds—point to the urgent necessity which undoubtedly exists for the introduction of an advanced measure of local reform ; and the first step in this direction, before conferring any further powers, should be the enfranchisement of all householders having a residence of six months and the limiting of plurality of voting to, say, two votes as the maximum.