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arises as to whether the first election, which is to be held in
November next, will be conducted on the register of voters to be
prepared during the coming summer, or on the register prepared
last year. The register of voters to be prepared during the ensuing
months does not come into operation until next year; and unless,
therefore, the present registration law is altered before November,
the first election in that month will take place on the old register
with the result that, to be entitled to vote, electors must have been
in occupation for twelve months prior to the 15th July, 1603;
while any one who has left or altogether ceased his or her connection
with the parish since the 15th July, 1893, will be entitled to vote,
provided he or she is on the register.
Qualification of Persons to be Elected.
Section 23 (2), which is made applicable to members of
Vestries and District Boards, and to auditors, by section 31, provides
that a person shall not be qualified to be elected or to be a
"councillor," unless ho is a parochial elector, or has during the
whole of the twelve months preceding the election resided in the
district, and that no person shall bo disqualified by sex or marriage
for being elected or being a "councillor." The twelve months
residential qualification inserted in this section was, I imagine,
intended to provide for any persons who, being entitled to be on
the register of electors, might have been inadvertently omitted
from the list. Reading the words literally, however, several important
questions are at once raised. For instance, although as
previously mentioned a husband and wife cannot both be qualified
as electors in respect of the same property, there does not appear
to be anything to prevent a husband and wife as well as a large
family of sons and daughters, provided they are of full age, from
being elected on the Vestry if they have resided in the parish
during the whole of the twelve months preceding the election. In
fact, there is now practically no qualification needed for election as
an administrator of the affairs connected with the local government
of Metropolitan Parishes.
The provisions relating to the disqualification of members are
set our fully in section 46. A person is disqualified if he is an
infant or alien; has received union or parochial relief within