Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/96

 70 ADELAIDE AND VICINITY The a.i.ens and the Surveyor-General. There were no representative institutions, but its size and wealth seemed to demand that the residents should be given control of the city. Improvements were imperatively required, and it was to be expected that they would be carried out more satisfactorily by representatives chosen by the people than by the Government. A little over three years after the foundation of Adelaide its residents were awarded a system of responsible government, and rose to the dignity of citizenship. On Augfust 19. 1840, while the boom was in full swing, Governor Gawler and his Executive Council passed the first Colonial Municipal Act, 4th Vic, No. 4. The Colonising Commissioners had recommended to the Secretary for the Colonies that towns in South Austnilia with a population of 2,000 persons should be granted elective municipal institutions : and as the population of Adelaide was now four times that nuniber, the Secretary for the Colonies advised the Governor to grant the privilege. The Act provided for the election of a Council, to consist of 19 Common Councilmen, including a Mayor and three Aldermen, and for the levying of rates. A vote was extended to every adult male who had resided in the Province for six months prior to enrolment, who was proprietor or tenant of any land or building within the city valued at ^20 per annum, and who lived either within the municipal limits or within seven miles thereof. Persons were disqualified who had received public charitable relief within six months of enrolment, or, within two years of siime. had been convicted of crime by a Supreme or superior Court. No person could be enrolled who, before July 15, had not paid the rates due by him, except such as had become due within one calendar month. Ratepayers could be elected as Common Councilmen if they owned or occupied houses within the city valued at ^50 per annum, or ix)ssessed personal- property valued at ^500 ; but persons were ineligible who were in any way interested in Corporation contracts, or who had at any time been convicted of crime by any Supreme or superior Court, followed by imprisonment, within Her Majesty's dominion.s. A false declaration regarding such qualification was punishable by a fine of not le.ss than /50 nor more than ^^loo. Penalties were to go into the Cor])oration revenue. The total number of voters on the roll was to be declared by public advertisement, with •• the proportion required to constitute each electoral section empowered to return a member of the Common Council, such proportion to be as nearly as numbers would permit one-nineteenth of the whole." Besides the ordinary system of election, it was made comjietent to the electors themselves, by voluntary cla.ssification, to form into as many electoral sections as there were members to be elected, so that each might return one member, provided that they could agree to a unanimous vote. The Returning Officer, after a scrutiny of the poll books in which he had entered the names of electors who jXirsonally appeared before him, could declare returned the candidates who had been unanimously elected by each of the quorums. A proviso "precluded the persons thus voting for one candidate from voting again by ordinary election, should the Common Council not be filled up in whole or in part by the electoral quorums." An annual mayoral allowance of /300 was made, which, with the consent of the Governor, could be increased to ^500. The maximum amount of the