THE WARD SYSTEM.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12669, 3 May 1905, Page 2

THE WARD SYSTEM.

The Town Clerk's explanation of Mr West's case," to which we referred yesterday, puts 'a' different on the matter. We understood-from Mr West's statement that although lie was qualified to be enrolled either in the south-west or the north-east •ward, he had in previous years elected tq be placed, on--the. roll of the formery and : that he had, prior to last week's election, been transferred without his knowledge to the latter;-. But .the rolls show, as the Town Clerk points out, that .he was en-; rolled on both, a condition of affairs which is in direct,contravention of the;" Municipal Corporations Act." Subsection 2 of section 16 of the Act plainly states that "in the case of a .divided borough, the name ,of any person shall, not appear on the district electors' list or roll for more,than one -ward." This mandatory provision appears to have been totally ignored in the rolls which Mr Virtue found : ih existence when he took up his duties as TownClerk at the beginning of March," and he had no option but to put them in proper order at the. earliest opportunity.' The result .of his investigations is seen in the fact that in spite of the increase in the population since the roll was compiled two years ago, the number of electors" has fallen from 2190 in 1903 to 1948 in the present roll. The reduction, of course, has been due to the disappearance of what may tie called plural enrolment, the aboltion of which was decreed by the Act of 1900. In revising the rolls, Mr Virtue followed the safe principle of leaving the elector's name in the ward in which he had the greatest interests, and striking hinu off the rest.. It is, onea'ts anybody/

who •wishes to be enrolled in a ward other than that to which he has been assigned, to apply for a transfer, provided he possesses the necessary qualification in the district to which he desires to be transferred. With the few days at his disposal when he, began the revision of the rolls, the Town Clerk could not possibly have communicated with all those whose names appeared in more than one ward, in order to ascertain their wishes in the matter, but his explanation of the procedure he adopted should satisfy, any leasonable person. All this discussion " about wards, however, would b? got over in a simple way by the abolition of the ward system. As Mr Virtue points out, it exists now solely for representation purposes, and its uses begin and end there. There are no separate ward accounts, and the affairs of the borough are administered without any attention to the artificial boundaiies which have been set up for the election of Councillors. Every member of the Council has a voice" ih the decision of any matter affecting any ward, a-d it is therefore only right that every elector should have a voice in the election of every Councillor. From this point o! view, the old system of allowing a ratepayer property.- in each ward to be placed on the ro'l of'each illegal though-it was-, had nevertheless,; an element of jtistice in it, _which, as the Act; stands, can be satisfied only by doing- away-, with the separate slectoral districts: into which the borough is divided.