THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1112, 27 April 1911, Page 4

THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

The municipal elections have not produced any remarkable changcs in the personnel of most of the local bodies in and around "Wellington. Onslow Borough has decided in favour of a new Mayor, Me. F. Holdswoktii, an ex-councillor, securing a win over Me. J. G. Haekness, the occupant of the office, by a handsome margin.- No doubt the absence of Me. Haekness from Wellington militated against his chances, but the majority in favour of Me. Holdswoeth was so largo that it is practically certain that victory would have been his in any circumstances. He is. familiar with the affairs of the borough and should fill the office with satisfaction to all sections. At Karori, the only other borough near Wellington to change its Mayor, Me. C. Cathie was returned unopposed. He also has had experience as a councillor and may be expected to prove a safe guardian of the interests it is his duty to watch over. Naturally most interest has centred in the struggle between the 36 candidates for the 15 scats on the City Council; and more especially on the very hard fight of the Labour party to capturc a majority of those seats. The party did a great deal 'of organising y'Jk in the way of enrolling electors ;it conducted a vigorous electioneering campaign; and it maintained a brisk onslaught on the polling-booths all day yesterday, bringing its supporters forward in solid numbers. As a result its candidates, generally speaking, show to better advantage in the polling than at the previous election. Their /record is, however, quite inadequate to the amount of work done, and to that extent must be disappointing to the leaders of the party. It is a very remarkable thing how the public of Wellington persist in voting for outgoing councillors. Even allowing for the fact that those councillors have done very good work, one would expect, with so many seats to fill and so many candidates offering, there would be an inclination to introduce more new blood. At tho last election only two new councillors were clectcd, and on the present occasion all the old councillors who presented themselves for election, with one exception, have been returned to office again. At time of writing the complete returns ■ have not been made up, but it is quite plain that whatever the final figures I may be the result on the whole is | the election of a Council in which! the city can have every confidence. So far as the holiday poll is concerned it is quite clear that citizens have dccidcd in favour of Wednesday. This decision is a wise one. It leaves the arrangements of the shop-keepers unaltered. Those businesses which wish to close on Saturday or any other day can continue to do so; while the great bulk of the shop-keepers will be able to maintain' their practice of making Wednesday their day for the weekly halfholiday. Owing to the late hour at which the record of the polling was made available ,we must defer our detailed comments on the features of the elections. -

A LESSON FROfll MILWAUKEE Those who are interested in the ambition of the Labour party in New Zealand to obtain control of the municipalities must have been struck by the frequency with which it is asserted that the Socialists who not long ago secured the control of Milwaukee, U.S.A., have greatly improved the government of that town. IJow this error has got abroad it is difficult to understand, for although Socialist writers in American publications tell pleasant stories of the new era in the newspapers of America contain from time to time plenty of facts of quite a different character. _By the American mail to hand this week we have the San Francisco Weekly Chronicle of March 22 last, in which its Mil- ■ waukce correspondent has a dispatch giving a very gloomy account of the conditions that the Socialists have assisted to bring about. There were at that time 20,000 men walking the streets of the town, vainly seeking for work, and the Associated Charities reported greater and more widespread suffering among the poor of Milwaukee than at any time within the last five years. The Mayor, Mr. Seidel, declared two years ago, when he was an alderman, that if he were at the head of the Board of Public Works he would find means to give work to the unemployed. This was the policy which brought him and his friends into office, this and the promise that graft and corruption would be at an end. Some months ago we noted that the Socialists had found it neccssary to .adopt the vicious methods of their predecessors in the matter of appointments. The Mayor has been long enough in office to carry out his promise of "work for all," but he lias lamentably failed, as it was evident ho would from tho beginning. In almost every .department of the city service, the Chronicle's correspondent reports, important work is being left undone in an effort to keep down expenses and thus rcduce the tax levy for next year. It is because of the fear that taxes must necessarily be higher than ever because of the large number of Socialist plans involving' heavy expenditures that the unemployed situation is growing more acute every day. "No large city contracts," we are told, "have been made during tho last few months. Contractors are idle, with the prospect that their enforced idleness will continue indefinitely, so far as city work is concerned. The streets are not being cleaned since last fall." By way of reremoved spasmodically, and then only when tho people insist on its being done. No alley has been cleaned since last fall" By way of relieving the situation, tho Common Council has thought of a desperate and amusing expedient. This is nothing less than the holding of a scries of public dances in the Auditorium, a semi-municipal building, which is to be furnished rent free. Merchants and others were asked to donate the nccessary supplies, and the proceeds of the danccs, and the entertainments connected with them, were to be paid into tho city treasury as a fund for the unemployed. This brilliant plan was to have begun last Friday fortnight. The unemployed figures in the State show that the distress is peculiar to the city, to which large numbers of unemployed were attracted by the campaign promises of tho Socialists that everybody would bo given work. Much of the trouble is due to the unwise financing of the preceding Democratic Administration, but the Socialists have not only failed to clean matters up, but have contrived to make bad worse. There is a lesson for New Zealand in the unfortunate experience of the American town—a lesson, it js true, that has been taught over and over again for a century, but one that cannot be too often emphasised.