The Dominion. MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1911. THE CITY'S GOVERNMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1109, 24 April 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1911. THE CITY'S GOVERNMENT.

The appearance of 36 candidates eager for election to the City Council will be taken by many people as an evidence of a keen and wholesome civic spirit. We cannot altogether share that view. Mental activity is not necessarily thought, and similarly a. rush for seats on the Council, while an encouraging sign in itself, is not necessarily proof of the existence of that real civic consciousness that makes for good city government. iho public have now had before them tor soma days an abundance of election addresses and election advertisements, and he must be very dull and unobservant who has not been struck by the common character of most of them. It is true that some candidates base their claims upon the necessity for new blood, while others confidently appeal to their long association with the government ot the city; but for the most part what the candidates most strongly emphasise is their determination to work ior prudence .and progress, efficiency and economy. These are aims, of course, without which no candidature would be anything more than a joke: they are assumed in every candidate, are, indeed, an undisputed condition of candidature. Stated, therefore, in general terms, /as they arc stated by most of the aspirants for office, these excellent intentions mean nothing at all. Indeed, they have no meaning unless they arc accompanied by a few examples from which the public may learn the general direction in which the candidate would travel in pursuit of his goal. City government doss not consist of the treatment of questions that a councillor 'can safely and effectivol" answer ly- saying: ".Record my votu on the side of prudence and progress. Everybody knows that nearly every question will reveal differences ol opinion amongst councillors as to what is efficiency or prudence. We should therefore have had from every candidate, and the public cannot, feel sure it is voting for the right man unless it obtains, a brief and clear statement, not of the ends that are sought (which are hardly m dispute) but of the principles of action through which those ends can be attained. It is the genera) failure or most of the candidates to discharge this duty which robs of some ot its value the unusual demands for stats upon the Council. We shall leave the general question there just now and proceed to a special case that it is not too late to bring before the candidates and the public. By far the most important development in local government during the past few years, as mostpeople know, even if they sometimes" forget it, has been the increasing tendency of the General Government to interfere with and to curtail the rights of local bodies. Again and again the friends of good local government, knowing the evils of centralisation, have had to protest—and this is as true of England as of New Zealand—against the growing en- | croachmonts of the central bureaucracy. And yet, so far as we arc aware, so far from placing this matter in the forefront of their policies, not a single candidate has considered it of sufficient importance to be even mentioned. This is the more astonishing since, in the minds of everyone interested in municipal affairs, the memory should be fresh of the two strongest successes of the party of centralisation, namely, the Tramways Act and Municipal Corporations Act of last session. The former measure, on its first introduction by the Government, was faced with' such a resolute opposition that it had to be withdrawn. Nothing seemed more certain than that its ruinous usurpation of municipal rights would never be confirmed by Parliament, but, as we have all seen, the persistence of the centralising bureaucracy ended in success. Although the Mayor endeavoured to assure the public that the most noxious features of the Government's measure had been excised or mitigated, we showed that the Act still confers on the Government powers sufficient to take the real control of the tramways out of the city's hands, oo also the Municipal Corporations Act, although it contains some good provisions, perpetuates the vicious principle that the city shall not exercise over the State property within its limits certain powers that the very nature of city government requires shall bo of general application. The cities, all true friends of good local administration are agreed, have a greater duty than resistance to any further invasions of municipal rights: they must work for the recovery of rights already stolen from them by the Government with the connivance of its docile majority. It is desirable, therefore, that we should have a Council that will take steps towards this end, and those candidates will appeal to the public who make clear thoir possession of correct views in this matter.