LEGISLATURE ACT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 284, 28 November 1914, Page 7

LEGISLATURE ACT.

BREACHES BY CANVASSER. In the case at the Court yesterday in which A. A. Cuthbertson was charged with tailing to properly witness signatures to three claims for enrolment on the Electoral Roll, in the case respecting the claim of Marion Anderson, Mr Stanford stated that defendant gave a form of enrolment to Anderson, senior, on the 27th October last. On Wednesday, the 28th October, he called Mrs Anderson, and on Thursday, the 29th, he had a number of forms of enrolment, and this form was dated the 29th, it should have been dated the 28th. He called at the house and saw Mrs Anderson and asked her for the form and she said her husband had got it. She said it was all right, when he got it, having asked" Mrs Anderson to sign it. At the time he did not have the form wibh him. Mrs Anderson's evidence was that he never was at the house, and she never-saw him, and that the claim was given to Mr Anderson. He understood that she signed by putting her mark. Iri tins case her son wrote "Marion Anderson," and Mrs Anderson copied it and then it was brought back to the township (Whangamomona), and defendant never saw Mrs Anderson at all.

In the case of Phillips, said Mr Stanford, defendant never saw that man sign. The claim for enrolment was taken away, and Phillips signed it in the presence of Brannigan. The form was accidentally signed in a hatch of ten or eleven. This was witnessed at the same time, said Mr Stanford, quite wrongly and innocently.

Mr Thomson: Mr Phillips says he does not know he made the signature. The S.M. : With regard to these two oases, it only shows that Cuthbertson has been following a course of carelessness in the conduct of the ivork he has taken on. There has been nothing to compel him to do it at all, and ho appears to be making a business of it voluntary or otherwise, and instead of properly witnessing a signature he puts the form in his pocket, goes on to another house and gets another form. Amongst them he may have some which may not have been signed in his presence. It is most important that these claims should be in order. If only electors would sit clown for a few minutes and read the form they would then see that everything was correct before signing. Now, in dealing with these cases it is clear that this clnss of work is to be stopped. This kind of evidence is not always easy to find out. In the present cases I must inflict a fine of £lO in each case, although it should be £SO in each case. Where a man makes it his business to carry out the requirements of the Act it is his business to see that the Act is carried out properly. There is not the slightest excuse. He may have done it in hundreds of other cases. The proper way was that he ought to have witnessed the signature at the time the person claiming put his signature to the form. i