BOROUGH COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14220, 18 February 1914, Page 8

BOROUGH COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The borough has just gone through the trouble mid cxpeiiee of a by-election, and will have to face another in a couple of months owing to Mr -Wray (a very good councillor) leaving fpr England. Byelections put die borough to considerable expense and the burgesses to a lot of trouble, and any suggestion that would tend to improve present conditions should be worthy of a little consideration. 1 venture lo suggest that if the law which relates lo the liiliug ot vacancies l on School Committees was applied also to Borough Council vacancies much needless trouble and expense would be avoided. If a vacancy occurs on a School Committee the vacated seat is occupied by the unsuccessful candidate who got the highest number of votes. A borough councillor only jits for two years. There cannot be much objection 10 my .scheme, it works very well on School Committees; why not on Borough Councils!-' One advantage of my idea would be that at the general election of councillors three times the number of voters vote then than do at a by-election, so that a better expression of public opinion is obtained. I would not like to say that no objection can he brought against my suggestion, but I think idea is worthy of being discussed. In order to give an exact illustration to your readers of what I am suggesting, I will use the last School Com-

niittce election as an example. There j were nine scats to be filled, and about i fifteen candidates were nominated. After the nine had been selected, it is obvious that six were unsuccessful. Since the last election one of the committee’s seats became vacant through the lamented death of one of our number. We then called on the gentleman who came tenth to fill his place. This is the legal way of filling such a vacancy on a School Committee. If another vacancy took place, we would call on the eleventh man to fill the vacated scat, and so on. Another advantage of this system would he that a man could contest the Mayoralty and a ioat on the Council at the .same time, without the possibility of causing the extra expense to the borough which at present might easily take place. Last borough election three councillors stood for the Mayoralty. Only one could win, so two councillors necessarily had'to be (“retired.” I know that they can stand for both positions now, hut with this difference, that a successful Council candidate necessarily leaves a vacated scat if he is successful at both polls, and councillors are naturally reluctant to put the electors to too much expense. My scheme would do away with this retirement of tried men from borough affairs. Hoping the above ideas wilt he of some value.—l am, etc.,

WALTER- GREAT P.S. -At the last Council general election the highest unsuccessful candidate polled more than 12(10 votes, 50(1 votes more than were polled by both candidates at the by-clcction a fAw days ago. This is worthy of serious consideration.—W.G.