The Dominion. FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1908. A DISQUIETING SYMPTOM.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 246, 10 July 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1908. A DISQUIETING SYMPTOM.

$ A very singular document which wc received this week prompts us to make some observations upon an undesirable spirit that appears to be creeping into the " local government " of this country. The document wo refer ,to is a circular letter, issued by a candidate for a seat on the Wellington Education Board, and obviously intended for v dispatch to each member of the various school committees in the ward that the candidate desires to represent. It consists of an appeal outlining tho candidate's past efforts, together with a detailed list of " works in the Hutt-Manawatu ward completed, in hand, and authorised " during the candidate's term as :a member of the Board. The public has long been accustomed to the-Parliamentary candidate's appeal to the mercenary instincts of tho electors,' and tho lengthy list of " votes on the Estimates" which he quotes as the best of all testimonials to his fitness as their representative. . The conversion of the Public Works Fund, under tho Seddon regime, into a huge vote-catching machine, or Liberal fighting fund, has developed in many electorates and in many candidates the regrettable and antinational idea that tho chief object on polling-day should be the return of a delegate has the , knack of getting more out pf the Treasury for his district than anybody else. The late Mr. Seddon, as we reminded the. public the other day, did as much as he could to encourage in the elector the belief that the best way to secure a good share of the Public Works Fund was to return his nominee, and his successor has been following'in his footsteps 'during the past recess.' Already we have seen tho evils of this system in a general lowering of the intellect and capacity of the House of Representatives, and a weakening of the public conscience. The evil is obviously spreading when a candidate for election to an Education Board can. frankly advance/is a claim to fitness his capacity for getting the Board's funds spent in the ward that he seeks to represent. That such a circular can be 1 issued argues a very undesirable public view of the duties of members of local bodies. There is no disguise about the circular:

it is frankness itself. Wo are to suppose that the school committees are open to appeals of this kind, for otherwise the circular would not have been written. This spirit—this subordination of larger issues to tho securing of as large a sharo a3 possible of the public money—is bad enough in Parliament, but there is causo for further concern at its development in local government bodies. Tho reply that is made to such criticisms as ours in cases like* the one under notice is generally that it is the duty of .a member of Parliament or a member of a local body "to safeguard the interests of his constituents," '"' to secure a fair allocation of the public- " to see that his district gets its share." But nobody is so simple as to believe those fine-sounding professions of virtue. When a candidato reads a list of fjhe votes that he has secured,.ho implies that he is-the man to get tho cash. Not merely the fair and just proportion ox cash due to his district: what district ever wanted only what was fair?—but something out of tho common. . What chance of election,, until the public conscience returns, would a candidate have who said: " Ladies and gentlemen, I shall endeavour to securo, exactly as much of the public money as is rightly due to this

district. I find that last year your representative, whom I hope to replace, secured £40,000, which I estimate is twice as much as it should be. I shall use my best efforts to obtain £2(5,000—n0t a penny less, but not a penny more." "He would al-' most certainly—quite certainly, if he were a candidate-for Westland—be placed at the bottom of the poll. In a House of Representatives or on a local body, entirely composed of equally ablo advocates, one might suppose that the final allocation of the publio funds would be justly proportioned. Wo doubt it would, but it would be ''just" only in this way, that every district would probably get the same percentage in excess of its due. The tendency, that is to say, is towards gros3 extravagance with the taxpayers' money. A second evil is the deterioration of our public life that must accompany the dominance of the spirit of " grab," the gradual decay of the finer qualities of statesmanship (since statesmanship would bo of no use by itself, arid statesmanship rarely exists side by side with a capacity to fight hard for'a share of the spoil), the general lowering of tho tone of the public's leaders. As the councils of local government: are nowadays the training grounds of our politioiaps, it is particularly discouraging to find the disease spreading in the region where a healthy conception of publio duty, is specially necessary. ,