The Press Saturday, April 23, 1921. The Municipal Elections.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17127, 23 April 1921, Page 10

The Press Saturday, April 23, 1921. The Municipal Elections.

Although the, number of candidates for seats on 'the Chriatcnurch City Council is not so great aa in Auckland, where fifty are contesting 21 aeats, and in "Wellington, where the citizens have to choose.'among 42 candidates for the 16 councillors, who are needed, the presence of thirty candidates in the field for the sixteen vacancies that have „ - to be filled argues the existence hero ~of quite 4 fair amount of interest in the election. For reasons which we' have' previously explained, and de"ptorea, the 1 election is being fought less ■on municipal than on political grounds, the chief contestants being the twelve nominees of the Citizens' Association, ind the ten put forward by the Labour Representation Committee, with eight Independents, who are supported, officially by, neither, party. We have no intention of undertaking the invidious task of advising our readers as to the candidates for whom they should vote; Jhati question, under the conditions obWning, is of far less consequence than is the questipn of whom they should " not 'vote for. Wo shall content ourselvea hy' pointing out* that among the CituAne' Association and Independent danaiaafes 4hero is "the material for a very useful Council, and that, as every voter has ample choice, among candidates of sound and moderate views, • nojm should run the risk of endangering fte welfare of the city by voting for Labour candidates. The latter, by , QlLifie spoken and printed word, have tneCto convince the electors of the

city that they are the only men to be trusted, that they are tho only individuals of sufficient business capacity to put the city's .finances on a sound, or sounder footing, that, in short, if tho public want to see how the Council can spend and save at the same time, how a reduction of tho rates- can be .accompanied by a lavish expenditure on various wild-cat schemes of municipalised services from making bricks and bread to running municipal dairy farms and distributing milk, and doing the citizens' washing for them, then they must vote for Labour. It sounds very nice, but the public, which has learned a little of late as to the diffi- s culty of simultaneously spending and saving, knows in its heart that it simply cannot be done. It is tho easiest thing in the world, vanco talk costs nothing, to promise this, that, and-tho other thing, before-tho..elections, but if by some mischance of fortune, which is as much as saying, by the credulous folly or indifference of the public, Labour were ever put in a position in'which it could be called upon to honour its promissory notes of a municipal millennium, its dupes would soon learn the width of the gulf separating promise from performance. The citizens, too, should realise that in voting I for Labour candidates they are-really voting for the dummies of a little coterie of Labourites who keep well in tho background, and thence pull the strings which make their puppets vote for or against any proposal that may be brought up in the Council. • A Labour candidate the other night explained the Labour caucus rule as meaning merely that Labour councillors "mqt together to consider- the "questions coming before the, Council " and decide what action should be "taken,.and who should move the reso"lutions." He did not mention whether the /.councillors met \each other only, or conferred with and took their instructions from their masters of the Labour Party, to whom they are bound hand and foot and mind. The other candidates, on the contrary,' arc, if elected, responsible only to the electors, and only by them.can they be called to account for their actions.' Apart from all this, aa we have said before, the present is not the time for trying expensive experiments in municipal' trading and management. Only those whose optimism is based on ignorance, can 'shut their eyes to the fact that the financial situation just now demands, on the part of those who have the spending of public money, the most 1 careful administration. . Knowing this, let the;citizens.:who.;possess a,sense of responsibility ask themselves, whether the city-would be likely to get the government" that' it "needs during troublous times, present and to come, at the hands of the irresponsibles of the Labour Party. /■"';'' : ' ''" '