Tae last resolution passed at the Inst mooting of Ratepayers, was a request to the Council to sketch out an amended code of Rules of Procedare, for discussion and adoption at the next general meeting, conforming them as far as possible to the rules of parliamentary vactice. In. anticipation. that the enlarged assemblies likely to meet under the reformed Land Regulations would need some more defined plan of procedure than. had hitherto been customary, a set of rales had been drawn up, as an'experiment, by theCouneil for 1869; but these were found in practice to have some awkward defects; and it was with a view to remedy these, that the now Council was asked to reconsider the question. The-sixteen rales advertised dri our front page, form the amended code which is now offered for adoption. In most cases the changes from the last are trifling; but one or two of the additions are important and five new rules have been added.
The extension, in Rule LI, of the lime for giving notice of propositions to be Inid before the meeting, from one to three days, is perhaps an improvement. It gives, more time for the Ratepayers to consider the project which they have to discuss; and, unless in some case of improbable emergency, a man can as easily draw up a resolution three days as twenty-four hours, before; a given date. The contingency of a proposal arising out of a subject under discussion, is specially provided for. Rule V is the really important one of the Code, and is in amendment of the proviso that "a vote once recorded at a meeting will, in the event of the absence of a voter during: a division in that meeting, be accepted as an "aye," unless a request to the contrary be formally lodged with the Chairman"—which was found to work so awkwardly, last year. Under it, towards the en of the meeting, when many of the Ratepayers had left, any proposal, however absurd, so long as it had relation to subject which bad come up for discussion, might have been carried by the obligatory "aye" votes of absent tees. We cannot think that the amended Rule now advertised is a very great improvement. It simply transfers the command of the absentee "aye" votes from the proposer of a possible resolution to the Chairman of the Council—virtaally placing in the hands of the retiring Council a power which might control the meeting. The point is a didlicalt one; for some such means of retaining in the meeting the number of votes required to form a majority, is necessary, to render the proceedings valid. Rule XV of the new Land Regulations provides that "all resolutions passed by a majority at such public meeting % shall be valid and binding upon the whole of the said electors, if not less than one-third of the said electors are present or represented." Assuming, therefore, that there ave 300 electors, of whom 100 wore present or represented at the outset, but-that ove left during the day, anything done by the remaining 99 would be illegal, unless it were provided, by some such rule as the present, that his vote remained in the meeting. The question is, in whom the vote should vest; and it appears to us that the Chairman of the meeting would be more fitting person than the Chairman of the Council. The Chairman of a meeting is presumed to be essen tially neutral; and would vote without the bias for or against a proposal affecting a hobby of the Council, which the Chairman of that Body would certainly feel. Or, still better, he need not vote at all, unless it appeared to him that some mensuro eminently unwise and unpopular was likely to fluke through, by the accidental constitution of the meeting. The votes would be present, but would be inactive. As Rule VIL stood at the last meeting, the rescission or modification of a re: Intion once passed was absolutely forbiden, A clause is now added, pi mitting such modification by a majority of three-fourths of the votes present. The use of this rale would imply a cor-tain amount of self-stultification on the part of the meeting; but a deadlock might aviso in which it centd be fally employed. Similarly, as Rule stood in the last Code, the decision of the Chairman on questions of order was made absolutely final.. A clause is now added, empowering three-fourths the voters present to overrule him. The proviso is not likely to be used, but might just possibly become usefal, in some strange emergency, and will probably be agreed to. The whole Code in fact seems. to us, on a first perusal, likely to work well except Rule V, which we do not expect to see pass, as it places too much power in the hands of the Council.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.