CIVIC GOVERNMENT

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19147, 2 November 1927, Page 4

CIVIC GOVERNMENT

[Contributed by the Citizens' Associa tion.]

In Christchurch to-day two organisations, the Citizens' Association and the Labour Party, contest municipal elections, the while the average citizen sits calmly or, as the case may be, apprehensively by studying his last rates notice. Some citizens vote with conviction, others just turn over and go to sleep again, others lighthcartedly back their fancy, but every citizen at length displays sufficient interest to listen to the one organisation or the other taking the count of the knock-out votes as they are intoned by the Returning Officer at the close of the fight.

The Citizens' Association has recently lost a bout—taken the count in no uncertain manner, and at the moment stands six seats down to Labour in the City Council. But the Association is neither defunct nor dissolved. Indeed, it is functionally in better order now than it has been for some time. Labour has not administered its coup do grace, but has merely assisted to knock it—into shape. Reorganisation is proceeding. The advent of some younger men has brought a noticeable fresh spirit into the organisation, a spirit as welcome to the older members who remain to give of their years of valuaable experience, as it is to any. Every thinking citizen whose .municipal creed is the antithesis of the vague and predatory creed of Socialism will find a ■welcome to tho Association's membership. ' It encourages the voice of criticism within its meetings, and will seek to function rather through the corporate voico of its general meetings than through the voice of caucus or committee left to its own devices, or peremptorily dictating a policy. Regular general meetings of the. Association are being held fortnightly until after the Tramway Board election, and thereafter will continue to be held at intervals to discuss matters of municipal interest that arise from tinio to time. In this way the Association's candidates or sitting members of local bodies will have their hands strengthened and directed but not ungovernably tied as by the Labour Party. That there are .questions of great moment daily arising is known to all. Our. Labour Council has borrowed without poll of the citizens the sum of £25,000 for relief of unemployment. It proposes to raid the M.E.D. and the quarry reserves to balance its accounts this year. A Labour Tramway Board might raid the tramway reserves and jeopardise our municipal transport of the future. The City Council roads report brings into view another possible huge expenditure. Such questions as these demand not only the sober and considered judgment of the men in executive public positions, but the valuable free and open criticism of the man who will be called upon to foot the bill. There is urgent call for the closest scrutiny of many propositions of our present Labour Council if wo are to escape any unjustifiable increase in rates or the taking of reserves carefully and sanely built up to cover the charges of the future on public undertakings. In tho immediate future there looms the Tramway Board election. 'Transport is one of the most vital problems of the day. When it is taken into account tjiat the Tramway Hoard represents a capital expenditure of £1,270,766, citizens will be well advised to follow tho Citizens' Association's platform and see if it does n<?t in "principle ensure a sound policy in dealing with a means of transport, the existence, exact modification, or nonexistence of which in the future cannot be accurately forecast. Suffice it to say that at the moment from the point of view of public economy there are unanswerable reasons for maintaining a tramway system with a feeder system of buses. The Association proposes in later articles in this column to deal fully with its policy in regard to the system, the outline of which is as follows: —

(1) The tramways, being a publiclyowned utility service, all operating costs and standing charges should be borne by the users without haviqg recourse to rates.

(2) Equitable adjustment of all fares and the removal of all unnecessary restrictions on concession tickets, compatible with the financial stability of the undertaking. (3) A system of one penny sections, with an overlapping central city zone, should be instituted and given a fair trial. (4) Regular trips at excursion fares to the seaside, resorts during the period th 6 Summer Time Act is in operation. (5) Depreciation and other reserve funds should be continued and conserved to meet renewal and other requirements inseparable from the exigencies of an ageing system. (6) Extensions to the tramway system should be limited to double tracks to the end of the second section, and to the institution of bus services to residential areas where warranted.