CONFLICTING POLICIES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1724, 15 April 1913, Page 4

CONFLICTING POLICIES.

It cannot be too clearly impressed upon the people of Wellington that in the coming municipal elections the battle will bo not so much between individuals as between conflicting principles or tendencies. On tho one side, we have liberty and progress-and government by representatives of, the citizens as a whole; . on the other, we have class rule, the strangling of private enterprise, and government by the Labour-Socialist organisers in the supposed interests of their- followers. The choice lies between these two 'policies, and it is to be hoped that the present attempt of a section of tho Labour party to capture and control the municipality will meet with a very decisive defeat; but if this is to be done, as we have before pointed out, every effort must be made by their opponents to prevent the splitting of votes, and every elector who is opposed to Labour-Socialist domination must make it a matter of public duty to go to the poll. The social wreckers are constantly endeavouring to make people believe that progress and Socialism arc practically synonymous terms; but plain facts which anyone can verify emphatically contradict any such contention. Has the government of any city been successfully conducted on Socialist lines? Take our own city. Was it the Labour-Socialists who planned and carried into effect the municipal undertakings and city improvements that have kept Wellington well.. abreast of the times ? Did they inaugurate our municipal tramways and electric lighting, our swimming baths, parks, and playing, grounds, the Zoo, and' other enterprises for the health and recreation of citizens 1 It •is only necessary ( to mention these things in order to ■prove that progress and improvement can be made withqut resorting to the class war and class representation in the Mayoral chair and the City. Council. The prevention and removal of slums, street-widening, the beautifying of tho city, and other desirable enterprises_are far more likely to be carried "through with efficiency and success by business men with progressive ideas than by men whose minds are obsessed by Socialist fallacies of the 'crudest kind. As Professor Macmillan Brown, ,of Christch'urch, recently stated, "the only Socialist community that could succeed would be ruled by a despot or,a despotic committee/and the people to be ruled must be brainless." The one sure method of true and lasting municipal advancement is by the co-opera-tion of all classes for the benefit of all, and it will be an evil day for Wellington if the representatives of one section of the community should be able to capture the government of,the city. It remains for tho electors to show by an overwhelming majority that Wellington is not going to be ruled by a class for a class,, but by the representatives of the people as a whole, and in the interests of the whole community.