QUALIFICATION FOR BURGESSES.

Colonist, Volume XVI, Issue 1807, 8 September 1874, Page 3

QUALIFICATION FOR BURGESSES.

To the Editor of the Colonist. Sir—ln perusing the burgees list I was struck with the number of persons who had been allotted four and five votes, and I turned to the Municipal Corporations Act, 1867, to see the qualification for burgesses. Clause 48 reads as follows :— Every person of the full aje of twenty-one years, who, on the Twentieth day of June in any year shall be in occupation or be the owner of any rateable property within any borough, and shall on that day be, or have been, under this Act liable to be rated for Buoh property as such occupier or owner respectively shall be entitled to be enrolled in that year, according to the provisions hereinafter contained, upon the burgess roli of the borough; and being so enrolled, shall be a burgess thereof, and entitled to vote in all elections of Councillors for the borough occurring while suoh roll shall be in force according to the following scale, that is to say, if such rateable property, whether consisting of one or more tenements, be rated upon a rateable value of less than fifty pounds, he shall have one vote; if such rateable value amount to fifty pounds, and be less than one hundred pounds, he shall have two votes ; if it amount to one hundred pounds, and be less than one hundred and fifty pounds, he shall have throe votes; if it amount to one hundred and fifty pounds, and be less than three hundred and fifty pounds, he shall have four votes ; and if it amount to or exceed three hundred and fifty pounds, he shall have five votes. The Interpretation Clause of the Act (page 255) reads : —"The expression 'rateable value 1 when used with reference to rateable property shall mean the annual value of any such property appearing in. a valuation for the time being in force under this Act, and on which value rates made by any Council are to be made." Clause 213 defines the expression "annual value" as follows:— "* * * * the property rateable shall be computed at its annual value that is to say at the rent at which the same might reasonably be expected to let from year to year." Now, I take it that the City Council have allotted the number of votes to which the burgesses are entitled, on the value to sell instead of the value to let as provided by law. What will be the results of this blunder in the coming election I leave your readers to imagine. I am, &c, Not a Btjegess,