8. In case of an equal division of votes the chairman shall have a second or casting vote. A.D. 1875 9. The proceedings of a local board shall not be invalidated P.H., s. 29, by any vacancy or vacancies among their members, or by any and see s. 19 defect in the election of such board, or in the election or selection or qualification of any members thereof. 10. Any minute made of proceedings at a meeting, and copies of any orders made or resolutions passed at a meeting, if purporting to be signed by the chairman of the meeting at which such proceedings took place or such orders were made or resolutions passed, or by the chairman of the next ensuing meeting, shall be received as evidence in all legal proceedings; and, until the contrary is proved, every meeting where minutes of the proceedings have been so made shall be deemed to have been duly convened and held, and all the proceedings thereat to have been duly had. See the Introduction, ante, p. lxviii. 11. The annual meeting of a local board shall be held as L.G. s. 24 (8). soon as may be convenient after the fifteenth of April in each year. See the Introduction, ante, p. lxviii. 12. The first meeting of a local board for a district constituted after the passing of this Act shall be held at such place and on such day (not being more than ten days after the completion of the election) as the returning officer may by written notice to each member of the board appoint; and the members shall appoint one of their number to be chairman at such meeting, and shall also appoint one of their number to be chairman for one year at all meetings at which he is present. 13. Nothing in these rules contained with respect to the appointment of chairman shall apply to the Oxford district, and in that district a chairman shall be appointed as heretofore. Oxford district. 28 & 29 Vict. c. 108, s. 7.-The Oxford Local Board shall yearly, at their first meeting in November, appoint one of their number to be chairman for one year at all meetings at which he is present; and in case the chairman so appointed be absent from any meeting at the time appointed for holding the same, members present shall appoint one of their number to act as chairman thereat; and in case the chairman appointed for the year die, resign, or become incapable of acting, another member shall be appointed to be chairman for the period during which the person so dying, resigning, or becoming incapable would have been entitled to remain in office, and no longer; and the chairman at any meeting shall have a second or casting vote in case of an equality of votes. Mode of conducting official correspondence. The Local Government Board, in a circular dated 20th January, 1873, state that the correspondence between sanitary authorities and their office will be conducted with greater facility and despatch if the following directions be carefully attended to:-1. That no document, except returns signed by the clerk, be transmitted to the office without a covering letter from him authenti A.D. 1875. cating it. 2. That every distinct subject of communication form a distinct letter on a separate sheet of foolscap paper. 3. That where previous communications have taken place on the same subject, the official number and the date of the last communication be quoted. 4. That the name of the sanitary authority, and the date of the meeting next following the communication, and the address of the clerk, be placed at the head of all communications from the Sanitary authority to the Board. 5. That all communications and packages from the country, which are directed to the office, be, as far as the arrangements of the post office will permit, transmitted through the post, and be directed under cover " To the Local Government Board, Whitehall, London." (2.) Rules applicable to Committees of Local Authorities, other than Councils of Boroughs, and to Joint Boards. 1. A committee or joint board may meet and adjourn as it thinks proper. 2. The quorum of a committee or joint board shall consist of such number of members as may be prescribed by the authority that appointed the committee or joint board, or, if no number is prescribed, of three members. 3. A committee or joint board may appoint a chairman of its meetings. 4. If no chairman is elected, or if the chairman elected is not present at the time appointed for holding any meeting, the members present shall choose one of their number to be chairman of such meeting. 5. Every question at a meeting shall be determined by a majority of votes of the members present and voting on that question. 6. In case of an equal division of votes the chairman shall have a second or casting vote. 7. The proceedings of a committee or joint board shall not be invalidated by reason of any vacancy or vacancies amongst their members, or any defect in the mode of appointment of such committee or joint board or of any member thereof. 8. Any minute made of proceedings at a meeting, and copies of any orders made or resolutions passed at a meeting, purporting to be signed by the chairman of the meeting at which such proceedings took place or such orders were made or resolutions passed, or by the chairman of the next ensuing meeting, shall be received as evidence in all legal proceedings; and, until the contrary is proved, every meeting where minutes of the proceedings have been so made shall be deemed to have been duly convened and held, and all the proceedings thereat to have been duly had. The whole of these rules are new, see the Introduction, ante, pp. lxviii, lxxxvi. SCHEDULE II. (1.) RULES FOR ELECTION OF LOCAL BOARDS. Number and qualification of Members. A.D. 1875. 1. The number of members of a local board constituted P.H. 1874, after the passing of this Act shall be such number as is s. 28. determined by the order forming the district. 2. The Local Government Board may from time to time by order, after local inquiry, increase or diminish the number of members of any local board, and may prescribe at what time or times and in what manner such increase or diminution shall take effect, and may vary temporarily the provisions of this schedule relating to the continuance in office and retirement of members so far as may be necessary for that purpose. See the Introduction, ante, p. lxix. 3. A person shall not be qualified to be a member of a local L.G., s. 24 (3). board unless he is at the time of his election, and so long as he continues in office by virtue of such election, resident within the district for which or for part of which he is elected, or within seven miles thereof, and is seised or possessed of real or personal estate, or both, to the value of not less than five hundred pounds in districts containing less than twenty thousand inhabitants, or to the value of not less than one thousand pounds in districts containing twenty thousand or more inhabitants; or is rated to the relief of the poor of such district, or of some parish within the same, on an annual value of not less than fifteen pounds in districts containing less than twenty thousand inhabitants, or on an annual value of not less than thirty pounds in districts containing twenty thousand or more inhabitants. This "annual value" will be the rateable value. Baker v. Marsh, 24 L. J. Q. B. 1; 4 E. & B. 144. A person possessing the requisite property, but not rated to any rate made, &c., before the election, was held not qualified, though he had been entered as rateable in a list added to such a rate, and had paid part of the rate under 17 Geo. II., c. 38, s. 12. Reg. v. Eddowes, 1 E. & E. 330; 28 L. J. Q. B. 84. The seven miles will be measured in a straight line. Lake v. Butler, 24 L. J. Q. B. 273; Stokes v. Grissell, 32 L. J. C. P. 141; Reg. v. Saffron Walden, 9 Q. B. 76; 15 L. J. M. C. 115. 4. Where two or more persons are jointly seised or possessed of real or personal estate, or both, of such value or amount as would, if equally divided between them, qualify each to be elected, or if two or more persons are jointly rated in respect of any property which if equally divided between them would qualify each to be elected, each of the persons so jointly seised possessed or rated may be elected, but the same A.D. 1875. P.H., s. 19. L.G., s. 24 (4). property shall not at the same time qualify the owner and the occupier thereof. 5. A person who is a bankrupt or whose affairs are under liquidation by arrangement or who has entered into any composition with his creditors, shall be incapable, so long as any proceedings in relation to such bankruptcy liquidation or composition are pending, of being elected member of a local board. Wards. 6. The Local Government Board may, by order made on application in pursuance of a resolution of owners and ratepayers passed in manner provided by Schedule III. to this Act, and after local inquiry, divide any district into wards; and on the like application from time to time may abolish such wards, or alter the number or boundaries of such wards, and may determine and from time to time alter the proportion of members of the local board to be elected by each ward. Provided that where a district has been divided into wards by a provisional order such wards shall not be abolished or altered otherwise than by a provisional order confirmed by Parliament. See the Introduction, ante, p. lxix. 7. If any member is elected in more than one ward, he shall within three days' notice thereof choose, or, in default of his choosing, the local board at their next meeting shall decide for which one of the wards the member shall serve, and he shall thereupon be held to be elected in that ward only, and a vacancy shall be held to exist in the other ward or wards, and shall be filled up as if it were a casual vacancy. 8. No person entitled to vote shall give in the whole of the wards a greater number of votes than he would have been entitled to give if the district had not been divided into wards, nor in any one ward a greater number of votes than he is entitled to in respect of property in that ward. 9. Subject as aforesaid, any owner or ratepayer may, by notice in writing delivered to the clerk of the local board, or in case of the first election to the returning officer, elect in what ward or wards he will vote for the ensuing year, and determine the proportion of votes which he will give-in any one or more of such wards, and if he does not give such notice he shall not be entitled to vote for any ward in which he does not reside. A voter having property in two wards may give in one all the votes that his property therein will justify; and if it exhaust his full number of votes, he cannot vote in the other; but if it do not exhaust them all, he can give the residue in the other ward if he have sufficient property therein to support that number. Under the Municipal Corporation Act (5 & 6 Wm. IV. c. 76, s. 44) it has been held that a burgess who has property for which he is rated in two or more distinct wards, is not entitled to be enrolled or to vote in more than one ward. If at the time of revising the lists, he refuses to select the ward for which he wishes to vote, the mayor may strike out his name from all the lists except one. Reg. v. Cambridge, 28 L. J. Q. B. 10. And under the 22 Vict. c. 35, the nominator of a candidate for election as town councillor must be a burgess of the ward for which the candidate is nominated, Reg. v. Parkinson, 17 L. T. 169; 37 L. J. Q. B. 52; 8 B. & S. 769; the same rule would seem to apply to the nomination of a candidate for election for a ward in a local government district. Qualification of Electors, Scale of Voting, Register of Owners. A.D. 1875. 10. The word "owner," when used in relation to the right P.H., s. 20. of voting at any election of a local board, shall mean any person for the time being in the actual occupation of any kind of property in the district or part of a district for which he claims to vote, rateable to the relief of the poor, and not let to him at a rackrent, or any person receiving on his own account, or as mortgagee or other incumbrancer in possession, the rackrent of any such property. 11. A person shall not be deemed a ratepayer or be entitled to vote as such at any such election unless he has been rated to the relief of the poor in the district or part of a district for which he claims to vote for the space of one whole year immediately preceding the day of tendering his vote, and has also before that day paid all rates made on him for the relief of the poor in such district or part of a district for the period of one whole year, and all rates due from him under this Act, except rates which have been made or become due within the six months immediately preceding. By the Poor Rate Assessment and Collection Act, 1869, 32 & 33 Vict. c. 41, s. 19:-The overseers in making out the poor-rate shall, in every case, whether the rate is collected from the owner or occupier, or the owner is liable to the payment of the rate instead of the occupier, enter in the occupiers' column of the rate book the name of the occupier of every rateable hereditament, and such occupier shall be deemed to be duly rated for any qualification or franchise as aforesaid; and if any overseer negligently or wilfully and without reasonable cause omits the name of the occupier of any rateable hereditament from the rate, or negligently or wilfully misstates any name therein, such overseer shall for every such omission or misstatement be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding two pounds; provided that any occupier whose name has been omitted shall, notwithstanding such omission and that no claim to be rated has been made by him, be entitled to every qualification and franchise depending upon rating, in the same manner as if his name had not been so omitted. Every payment of a rate by the occupier, notwithstanding the amount thereof, may be deducted from his rent (as provided in s. 3 of the Act), and every payment of a rate by the owner, whether he is himself rated instead of the occupier, or has agreed with the occupier or with the overseers to pay such rate, and notwithstanding any allowance or deduction which the overseers are empowered to make from the rate, shall be deemed a payment of the full rate by the occupier for the purpose of any qualification or franchise which, as regards rating, depends upon the payment of the poor-rate. The provision as to the payment of rates will apply to the year so computed, and a person continues rated to the poorrate until a fresh rate is made from which his name is omitted. 32 & 33 Vict. c. 41, s. 7. |